Future Tense
by Keaalu
Summary: Fate can be a cruel mistress. Struggling to find a new purpose after a lifetime of knowing only war, an accident leaves Skywarp lost and stranded in an unfamiliar version of home - no idea how he got there, no way back home. Worse, though, is not knowing how to convince his friends of the genuine danger they're in, before their way of life is destroyed altogether... (Blue AU)
1. Chapter 1

**Future Tense - Chapter One**

**Disclaimer: **As ever, author neither claims nor intentionally implies ownership of the 'Transformers' brand, or any canon character or concept herein, who are copyright 1984-present Hasbro/etc and used with much love and respect to their creators.

**A/N: **Yes, I have resumed work on this! As I have a better idea of the plot.

Just pulling a couple of the chapters up a little to match my current standard, and chapter 10 will (hopefully!) be along soon enough.

* * *

In the 'kitchen' area of a large residential unit in one of Deixar's suburbs, desk sergeant Pulsar sat humming unmusically to herself and sorting through a heap of brightly-coloured squares of fabric, distractedly watching the news with one portion of her attention and listening to Footloose chattering mindlessly with the other, wondering where a certain teleport had got to.

_Only running some errands, Squeaks_, he'd said. _I'll be back to take Lucy off your hands so quick, you won't even know I was gone._

Sure. 'Errands'. That was a whole half an orn ago. More likely, he was trying to convince Nightsun of the reasons why he shouldn't book him for yet another breach of the peace. Pulsar smiled to herself anyway. Skywarp; poster child for the ASBO generation.

Even now, almost four solar orbits after her disastrous one and only unwanted trip to Earth, she still couldn't _quite_ believe how _good_ it felt just to be home, doing all the boring mundane things she used to hate with so much passion. Her grungy, half-derelict home district was hardly prime real-estate, but in a way, that had saved it. With nothing attractive to try and lay claim to, the fighting had passed around it on all sides, and Deixar had emerged relatively unscathed from a war that was definitely dwindling into its terminal stages. Sparked at the start of the war and knowing little else, Pulsar couldn't help wondering what this new age of peace was going to bring.

The police-bike hadn't yet quite regained the strength – physically or psychologically – to properly return to work; light desk duty was still about all she was capable of, in spite of her efforts to get her life back on track and back to normal. She was at least back to her usual crisp, tidy self, resplendent in her renewed blue and white colour scheme, and usually wearing a shawl at a jaunty angle across her shoulders to make her remaining injuries – her still-absent right arm – less obvious.

Thinking about her missing arm – or rather the cause of it – always upset her gyroscopes. She took a moment to cycle cool air and think stabilising thoughts, unclenching her left fist finger by finger. _Siphon's not here, Pulse. He's buried under a desert somewhere_.

A little noisein the background attracted her attention out of those bleak thoughts, and she glanced towards the living area. That sounded like the door to Forceps' study. They were back already? It was a quiet little _click_, not the resounding _crash_ of anger that usually meant one of the twins (or more likely, their sire) had annoyed the burly surgeon, so she guessed all must have gone well at the hospital. She slipped out from behind the table, leaving Footloose glued to the flight videos playing on her computer terminal, and went to see what was going on.

As she'd guessed, there was no Forceps in sight, the big female having retired to the (comparative) sanctity of her study. Instead, an unfamiliar little blue bike stood in the main doorway, a couple of footsteps into the lounge, his arms spread, apparently waiting for her to appear. "Well?" he prompted, and gave a little twirl. "How do I look?"

Pulsar couldn't help the broad, pleased grin that lit up her dark features, and gave the stranger a hug, feeling a very familiar static envelope harmonise with hers. "Very dapper, Slipstream. How does it feel?"

Her sparkling hugged her back, and rubbed cheeks. "I don't know yet," he admitted. "I think I'm still too excited about it to think properly. Still feels like my fuel lines are full of bubbles!"

The protoform had departed for the district hospital early the previous orn with his aunt, so excited about the impending upgrade that he was barely able to sit still. His family had gathered together enough credits to be able to afford to get both the twins an upgrade, now their harmonics were mature enough to cope with the transition, and Slipstream was first on the list. (Footloose, determined that she _must_ _at all costs_ have a set of wings, had been told in no uncertain terms that if she didn't want to ground-pound for a while, she'd have to wait until she was bigger.)

"Have you tried it out yet?" Pulsar wondered, holding Slipstream at arms' length and giving him a thorough visual once-over – not that Forceps would have let even the smallest physical flaw slip past her attention, she wanted to get a good look for herself.

He shook his head. "I wanted to, but Sepp said I had to wait until I had someone to look after me, just in case anything went wrong." He gave one of his nervous, excited little laughs, still quivering all over in anticipation, and squeezed her hand. "We bumped into Whites on his beat earlier, he said he'd come over later for me."

"That's good. I wouldn't want to keep you waiting." She tightened her own fingers in response. "You'll probably vibrate yourself to pieces, the way you're going at the moment."

Slipstream giggled excitedly, still quivering, and didn't argue the fact.

"Well, come on then, bitlet." Irrespective of the fact that he was a fraction of an inch taller than her, now, both her sparklings had reconciled themselves to the fact they would probably remain 'bitlet' from the rest of eternity. "Let's get your tanks topped up, eh? Be a bit embarrassing if you fell over in the middle of your first run."

By the time they reached the kitchen, Footloose had woken up to the fact that he was back. She squeaked excitedly and launched herself at her twin, literally vaulting clean over the table. "Seeee-meeee," she crooned, latching her arms around him and rubbing their cheeks together. "You look all grown up and official, like Ama."

"Careful, I don't want paint-transfers already," he chuckled, nevertheless hugging her back. "Not from you, anyway."

"Yeah, 'cause _everyone_ will just be falling over themselves to get to know you, now you look like _every other bike in this friggin' neighbourhood,_" she snorted, tugging playfully on his new aerials; her brother _ow!_-ed in alarm and tried to shake her off.

"Play nice, Lucy," Pulsar warned, gently. "If you _have_ to maul your brother, can you at least wait until he's topped up his tanks?"

"It's okay, ama." Slipstream carefully nudged his bent antennae back into shape, giving Footloose a sneaky smile and settling opposite her at the table. "She just doesn't like the fact she's the runt of the family, now."

"Oh I see, it's like _that_ is it?" Footloose lifted her nose, aggressively. "Tell you what, _Seemy_, soon as I get my wings-... I'll race you. I'll show you what 'runt' really means."

Slipstream cocked his head and waved a hand, airily. "Yeah, well, I won't put my life on hold waiting for you-"

She gave an outraged squeak. "Glitching fragger! You know it's not _my_ fault they say I'm too small!" She threw the empty flask at him.

Slipstream ducked, but not quickly enough; it clattered noisily off his shoulders and skated off across the floor to somewhere inaccessible.

"Aw, you two ain't causing a ruction _already_, are you?" a new, brash voice wondered, from the doorway; everyone glanced over to find a large black and purple flier silhouetted in the doorway, his impressive wingspan almost forcing him to turn sideways to get through the door.

"Day's back!" Footloose squeaked, and the two (former) sparklings immediately attached themselves to him, clicking excitedly, quarrel forgotten.

"Hey, bitlet. And _heeey_, Seemy..." Skywarp approximated a little wolf-whistle noise, and snerked when the youngster's optics flushed a vivid lilac-white, embarrassed. "Nice job they did, there. Just a shame about the colour. Why couldn't you have picked something nice, like purple?" He winked. "Seriously. You're wearing the look well, kiddo."

"I feel like I'm all legs," Slipstream argued, quietly, with a sheepish smile. "Still doesn't feel _right,_ yet."

"Ah, give it time." Skywarp gave him a cuff around the audios, with a grin. "You've not even been in it a whole orn, yet. At least you're not walking into walls." The big teleport hesitated and gave him a exaggeratedly suspicious look, as though checking for scratches. "Or are you?"

Slipstream knew the abstract joke was referring to Celerity, whose systems had rejected all the dimensional primers that came with her refit and led to her being clumsy for a good hundred orns or so. "Not _yet_," he confirmed, with a sort of wary confidence.

Noticing Pulsar glanced over his shoulder for the third time in almost as many seconds, at last Skywarp caught her optic. "If you're waiting for TC, he's not coming over just yet."

Her gaze latched with his, worried. "Has something happened?"

The teleport grinned. "Nah, he's caught up in paperwork. Panacea finally agreed to sign him off." He impulsively scooped her off the floor and span her around with a laugh.

Pulsar gave an involuntary _yipe!_ and reflexively kicked her feet, alarmed. "Put me _down_, Skywarp-!"

The bigger machine gave her a decisive squeeze and a long, _serious _kiss on the lips before plonking her roughly back down on her feet. "No more visits to the psychiatrist," he explained, grinning all the way from audio vent to audio vent. "Pan says he's as 'fixed' as she'll ever get him."

Well, that explained the scintillating mood he'd brought home with him, she acknowledged, wobbling to regain her balance. "That's great news. I bet he's relieved!"

"Last I saw, he was, ah, 'celebrating' with Pan." Skywarp winked, meaningfully. "You know what _that_ means."

"They're not fragging, Skywarp." Pulsar shook her head, despairingly, and swatted his arm. "So _that_ was what you meant by errands? You could have been less cryptic. I was worried you'd got arrested again."

"Ah, you know how Pan's place gives me the creeps. I just didn't want you to think you needed to come hold my hand."

In the first few orns after their return to Cybertron, Starscream had got his wingmates signed up with a psychiatrist – and not just _any_ psychiatrist, but the head of the entire psychiatry department, Consultant Panacea. _I need my trine back at full health, so I don't care about cost, just getting them all better._ Although he groused bitterly about it and how they never appreciated it, everyone knew he'd have done the exact same thing if given the chance to re-do it. (Besides, how does a former air commander plot righteous vengeance against his former leader with his trine in pieces?)

Skywarp was – predictably – first back on his feet. For almost half a solar orbit, he danced a very fine line between recovery and total emotional crash-landing; _it was all my fault, I started this, I couldn't find them fast enough, I let Siphon escape, I'm slow and stupid and I deserved everything that has happened._ Gentle logic and reassurance convinced him that it wasn't _all_ his fault, and that none of what happened was unfixable, and everyone was on the road to recovery, and eventually he pulled up out of his nosedive.

Plus he'd very rapidly come to the conclusion that actually? Being a stay-at-home parent? Wasn't so bad as he'd thought. Kinda okay, actually. The sparklings hung off his every word like it were some gospel truth, and happily joined in with his causing mischief. Even bathing the reluctant little fraggers had its moments of hilarity. Starscream very quickly got exasperated with their antics and summarily banned Skywarp and his "little minions" from his makeshift laboratory.

"So," the teleport wondered, loudly, helping himself to the unattended flask of fuel balanced precariously next to the sink, "have you two troublemakers managed to bully Ama into having her arm reattached yet?"

Pulsar glared at him, good-naturedly. "Just because I only have one arm doesn't mean I can't give you a good punch in the faceplates."

He smiled sweetly and closed his fingers delicately around her wrist. "Care to review that statement, oh squeaking one?"

She growled and made a mock lunge at him, snapping her denta at the air close to his nose.

The _snap_ took him completely by surprise and made him jerk backwards, then laugh rudely. "Feisty today, huh?" He cupped a hand around her 'blinker' sidelight, and used his fingers to strum lightly across her sensitive little array of antennae. "Soo, how about…" He leaned down close and murmured near her audio. "We dump the bits on Screamer, and go for a little 'fly'? I even made sure I'd got a baffle, just in case."

The feel of his rough fingers on her antennae was… _nice_… but it flared up a mess of other feelings in her chassis and after a tense little smile, she pushed him gently back anyway. "S-sorry, Warp. Not right now."

He huffed a sigh, dramatically, and obediently took his hand back. "Even if I promise not to accidentally make any more sparklings with you?"

"_Even if_." She gave him a terse, uneasy smile, backing out of arm's reach. "I'm sorry, Warp. I just-… not yet. Maybe soon."

They both knew that 'soon' was rather _over_-optimistic, but Skywarp didn't argue the point. He rolled his optics, shrugged and nodded, a disappointed smile on his lips, and took refuge in his stolen flask. "Well, don't make me go plead my case to Beemer. You know what a lack of interfacing does to a mech? I'm wearing my hand out."

Pulsar blinked at him, not sure she understood the "squishy-ism" and not really wanting him to ping her any explanatory images. "Listen, you lazy fragger." She gave him a stern swat on the wing, just hard enough to make the plating vibrate. "You need to remove our squabbling offspring from beneath my feet before I take more drastic measures to get them to behave."

Slipstream was already up on his feet and gazing hopefully out of the window into the narrow alley behind the property. "Whites is due off shift any minute. He said he'd come with me for a spin around the district, remember?" He glanced back at his parents, and smiled, shyly. "To help me get used to my new alt?"

Footloose muttered something disgusted, and folded her arms against the table with a meaningful _thump_.

Skywarp grinned. "Job done, then. No more squabbling. That was easy!"

"All right, Smart-aft, let me rephrase." Pulsar huffed a sigh. "You need to take _Lucy_ out for a while, firstly so she stops feeling hard-done-by, and secondly stops getting in my way, so I can do my laundry."

"Tch." Skywarp flicked the tassels on the swirly blue shawl tied at a jaunty angle across Pulsar's shoulders. "You don't have to tell Prime's Autodorks you're not wearing the tat they keep sending any more. It's not like anybody's forcing you to."

"_P__erhaps_ I _like_ wearing them," she retorted, semi-defensively. "They make me feel less… broken."

Skywarp pursed his lips in a half-apologetic smile. "…I'm sure Sepp would be gentle, if you asked her to get you fixed up."

"I know. I-… it's not about being gentle. I know it'd just… put me straight back under the desert, with Siphon's fingers down my intakes."

"Even if I was there, to protect you?"

"I'm sorry, Warp." The ex-Con didn't often let his gentle side out, and she felt wretched for turning him away. "Soon as I think I can cope with it, I'll let you know."

"Whitesides!" Footloose's gleeful squeak broke through the awkward atmosphere.

Being a significantly smaller mech than Skywarp, the Policebot stood up to the obligatory Greeting Maul a lot less easily – his legs almost gave way beneath the weight suddenly attached to him. "All right all right! Steady on, you two, you're going to knock me flying," he laughed, trying to stay upright. "It's good to see you two troublemakers too. Still running poor Ama ragged, I see?"

Pulsar made a face. "You have _no idea_ how glad I am that you're here. Seem needs some practice with the new alt; if you wear him out a little, he and Footloose might stop butting heads."

Whitesides gave his former room-mate/adopted-sibling an affectionate smile and bumped cheeks in greeting. "Oh, I'll tire him out, no worries there," he promised, with a wicked grin. "We'll give that new alt of his such a workout, he won't know what hit him. He'll get in after we're done, and be far too busy recharging to want to fight with Lucy."

"Tire him out _how_?" Skywarp challenged, catching Whitesides' arm as he passed.

The smaller mech already had something of a reputation around the station, and only now realised the possible implications of his wording. His optics flushed a vivid cyan, alarmed. "N-nothing like that!" he blurted, hastily. "I-I just mean take him for a run round the block! Uh, that is-"

Skywarp planted a hand over the smaller mech's lips, which managed to convince him to shut up. "You might wanna _quit_ _digging_," he suggested, amusedly, leaning closer.

"Da-ayy," Slipstream groaned, embarrassed, and pushed past him.

Whitesides looked a lot like he wanted the ground to open up and swallow him, mumbled something apologetic, and hastily scuttled out after his 'nephew'.

The instant the door closed behind them, Pulsar turned to glance at Skywarp, and arched a brow, amused.

"What?" the teleport challenged.

She just smiled, vaguely, and shook her head. "Just… take the bitlet out for a fly, will you? She's getting fidgety."

Footloose gave her a resentful look, but didn't argue.

0o0o0o0o0

Seeing Slipstream racing excitedly away down the main street didn't improve Footloose's frame of mind – in fact, it made it positively _sour_. _Proper little green-eyed monster_, Skywarp considered, privately, but didn't say so out loud. He'd almost – but only _almost _– suggested that well, maybe they ought to hold off on Seem's alt, too, just for a little while, so the two troublemakers could whine about how _unfair_ it was together? But then he reasoned _that_ wasn't especially fair, either, especially since Seem had no ambition any higher than ground-pounding his way around the planet's surface for the rest of his days-

"Day?" Footloose leaned closer to Skywarp's audios, sprawled out over his back with her arms around his throat. "When _am _I going to get my wings?"

Skywarp vented air in a sigh, watching as the ground dwindled below. "Please don't start this all again, Lucy. You already know what I'm gonna say, 'cause we're telling you the same thing at least three or four times an orn."

"I know." She huffed and bumped her helm against his. "I just-... It's not fair. Now Goodie-Straight-Struts has got an alt, he's gonna keep teasing me with it. Please, Day."

"Oh, so you changed your mind and don't mind ground-pounding for a while, eh?" He glanced backwards and met her muted green optics.

"I… didn't precisely say _that_…" She couldn't quite decide if she wanted to glare at him, or just look melodramatic and dispirited.

"Well, I pretty strongly remember us telling you it was _bike_ or _patience_, and there was gonna be no wibbling from that until you're bigger."

"But he's leaving me behind! He's gonna get a _job_, and a _partner_, and _move out_, and I'll still be stuck at home, getting under you and Ama's pedes and getting yelled at by Screamer." Footloose muttered something quiet, vented a melodramatic sigh, and let her chin come down with a bump to rest on her parent's shoulder, as though to emphasise how traumatised she was.

Skywarp caught his sparkling's mutter, and had to offline his vocaliser before he could snap at her for it. _You just like him better than me._

"Sepp explained it for you, and even _I_ get it and _I'm __the _stupid one," he said, diverting his irritation down an alternative channel. "Your protoform is too small, right now. You need two upgrades in size, and a new power handling system, then the time to stabilise your harmonic to each upgrade. That's aside from needing to be big enough that you won't just… blow your thrusters clean off."

"So I can be bigger! You can ask Aunnie Sepp to make me bigger!" She rubbed cheeks with him, as if that'd somehow sway his opinion. "It's not that big a deal is it? Seem's bigger! _He_ didn't need time to stabilise-"

"Damnit, Button. Just accept a _no,_ for once in your life." He glared at her, at last, and he felt her arms tighten around his neck as she cringed away. "Sepp _told_ _you _why we can't upgrade you to a flight-capable model yet, and she _told you _what'll happen if we try putting a big old thruster complex onto those teeny tiny stick-legs of yours. I'm not gonna have you screwing up your harmonic for the next Primus-only-knows-how-many Vorns just because you couldn't be _patient_. Besides." His voice softened. "I'm looking forwards to teaching you to fly, so I kinda want you bigger, too. We're gonna have to be patient together, huh?"

Footloose made an uninterpretable little noise that could have meant anything from suspicion to satisfaction with the answer, but she at least seemed mollified, for now.

0o0o0o0o0

Down by Deixar's seismic rift, Starscream was off-duty, but that didn't stop him _working_. He stood at the edge of the rift, poking at a seismograph; there had been a fair bit of suspicious activity, of late, and he wanted to check out exactly what was going on. The last thing anyone wanted was for the rift to become active again, after the district had skated through the entire war pretty much unscathed.

"Go set these up over there where I put the yellow radio beacon," he instructed, dumping a case of tools into Skywarp's arms the instant the dark Seeker had landed and dropped his passenger off. "I need to take some topological measurements."

"Well hello to you too, Screamer." Skywarp held the case at arm's length, as though it contained something poisonous. "I don't even know what these are, and you'll probably tell me I did it wrong."

"Well, you don't need to know what they are to go put them over there. I coded them all with the right co-ordinates, and they go _flat side down. _And that wasn't a challenge!"

Skywarp snorted and kicked off, deliberately scattering gravel at his wingmate. "I dunno what your last servant died of, but it sure wasn't _boredom_, huh?"

"What's that supposed to mean?!" Starscream yelled at his departing thrusters, and got a rude noise in response. "And what's wrong with _you_?" He directed his attention down at Footloose. "You better not be the reason Skywarp's in a funny mood, or you can go back home now."

Footloose settled on the broken edge of the Rift and dangled her feet over the precipitous drop. "S'nothing."

The red jet gave a dismissive grunt. "So long as you sulk over there, and don't get in my way."

"I'm not _sulking_," Footloose retorted, arms folded, kicking her heels and watching as Thundercracker glided in. "I only said how I want to fly. You guys get torqued pretty quick if you're grounded, so why are you acting like it's outrageous for me to just _ask_?"

Starscream nodded an abbreviated greeting at his blue wingmate. "As we all tell you, at least four times a day, each and every day, you'll have to be patient," he growled, jaw tensed. "Now is not a good time to go testing my mood-"

"But _everyone_ _always says that_, but _Seem_ doesn't have to be patient, does he-"

"Look, you ungrateful little brat, if all you're going to do is whine about how fragging _hard done by_ you are, you can clear off right now." Starscream stabbed an arm towards the busier streets in front of the Rift, voice deepening into a ugly snarl. Footloose actually flinched back, alarmed. "Bad enough that I'm forced to wallow in such sheer _ignominy_ here, some-some… _reject little Empty_ with wings, scraping to get by in a reject district on Cybertron, defeated and stupid, last thing I need is to have to listen to your slag as well! One more breem of _this_ and frig, I might just go crawling back to Megatron and ask for my old job back!"

His words ended with a snap, and Footloose just gazed up at him, startled into a wide-eyed, frightened silence.

"Get her out from under my feet, TC. Next time I might do more than just yell," he snapped, irritably.

"Hi to you both, too, I guess?" Thundercracker cast his gaze skywards, but obediently picked the small femme up; she immediately snuggled up against his chassis, vibrating softly. "C'mon, Button. Let's go for a wander."

"Didn't mean to upset him," she explained, barely coherent through the fizz of static distortions.

"Well, we have told you 'no' quite a lot of times already, huh?" Thundercracker used a fingertip to scratch at her aerials, and she calmed at the little affection. "Maybe it's a good idea to let us tell you when we think you're big enough, from now on, eh? It's not like we're going to _forget_."

He felt her nod, where her head rested against his shoulder. "I jus' don't like it when he yells at me like that," she explained, feebly. "And I don't want him going back _there_ 'cuz of me."

Funny what things got under their plating, Thundercracker mused, ascending gracefully back to the cool crosswinds that played across the district. She'd take a scolding without so much as a flinch, but the concept of _loss_, again, so close on the heels of almost losing everyone the first time? "He's not going to go back," he reassured. "He's just being a fractious old grump because he's working too hard."

"…he doesn't really think it was a mistake, coming here, does he?"

"Nah." Thundercracker lied through an offhand grin – truth be told, he wasn't entirely sure about that, himself. "Skywarp and me just need to find something good to keep his ambition occupied."

0o0o0o0o0

"So where's Lucy gone?"

"Off with TC, seeing as she seemed to have lubricated her vocaliser again." Starscream didn't even look up from his controls, as Skywarp reappeared from his task. "Whining about her favourite topic."

Skywarp wrinkled his nose and just managed to resist the urge to tweak the seismograph's controls while he waited. "Couldn't you just-… you know." He gave his wingmate a little look. "Maybe just make her a couple of little antigravs, or something? Just enough to get off the ground? Get us a bit of peace and quiet, and all that."

Starscream gave his wingmate a stern jab with his stylus and made him jump back. "I'm not bowing to your little brat's whining because she thinks she's hard done by," he snapped. "You useless saps have seen to it that she hasn't gone without _anything_ since we got home, the least she can do in return is learn a little patience."

"Whoa, hey, ease up, yeah?" Skywarp groused, backing off with his hands up. "It was just a suggestion, seeing as her whining is clearly so offensive to your delicate audios." He curled his lip and added; " I guess since it's not servicing your ambitions, you don't wanna know about it."

"...y_ou_ wouldn't know ambition if it got up and _shot_ you in the aft," Starscream sniped. "Never aiming any higher than your next energon break."

"Well maybe that's good, because look where 'ambition' got _you_!" Skywarp drew little air speechmarks for emphasis. "Hook's infirmary, mostly. Shame he couldn't loosen that _over-wound purge-retentive aft_ in the process!"

One of the delicate sensors rocketed out of nowhere and spanged off Skywarp's helm, sending him reeling in a cascade of broken sensory components. "Make that, second in command of the entire damn _army_, just in case you forgot. Which I gave up because I stupidly thought you two useless walking scrapheaps were worth it!"

"And career prospects were awesome, huh." Skywarp rubbed the little dent in his black paint, and curled a lip in a sneer. "Second in command to a leader who ignored the few _good_ ideas you had in favour of doing things his own way and fragging things to the Pit without fail every time. Awesome job prospects there, oh gracious leader!"

"Because crawling at his feet and agreeing with whatever he said in the hope that he didn't slag me was so much better option, you cowardly purple blob of tin!"

"Well what do you want me to say?" Skywarp demanded, at last, throwing up his hands. "Well golly, Screamer, I sure am sorry me and TC didn't say something _before_ you pissed most of your life away, chasing after ambitions that anyone with even _half_ a functioning cortical relay would know were completely out of your reach!" He hastily teleported a few metres out of reach of Starscream's arms-outstretched lunge for his throat, and watched with a thinly veiled glee as the scarlet jet got an intake full of dirt for the trouble.

Starscream replied with a shot at the teleport's thrusters. "The only reason _you_ didn't say anything is because you don't _have_ half a functioning cortical relay!"

Skywarp danced inelegantly out of the way. "At least I used to know when to shut the frag up! So I didn't spend most of my life _in sick-bay, _slagged by the leader I kept trying to stab in the back! Even the fragging _Autobots_ knew you weren't so much brave as just fragging unable to find a good enough leash for your vocaliser!"

"Well why don't you go _sign up_ if you suddenly _respect_ them so much?" Starscream stabbed an arm in the vague direction of the space-bridge. "Prime _can't wait_ to get us all on board, why don't you go earn a few sympathy points by getting you name on the list _first_?!"

0o0o0o0o0

"...They're yelling again," Footloose commented, quietly, noticing the flailing arms and gestures below.

"Yeah, I know, Button," Thundercracker agreed, softly. "Neither of them knows when to back down, as usual."

"I didn't mean to upset him."

"Aw, don't be like that, Lou." He lifted a hand and felt her fingers brush against it. "It's not your fault Screamer's got a spanner jammed up his thrusters."

"He wasn't yelling until we got there."

"Your uncle's just tired," he soothed, gently. "He works too hard, destabilises his systems, and feels like slag until he can get everything running smoothly again. And Day's never really been known for his tact, huh? They're just... rubbing each other up the wrong way, as usual."

He listened as she sighed, and felt her nod again.

"Come on. Let's see if we can track Seemy down, see how he's getting on. We can laugh at him falling over for a while. Yeah?"

She managed a tired snerk and bumped heads. "That's mean," she pointed out, then; "ok! Let's."


	2. Chapter 2

**Future Tense - Chapter Two**

**Disclaimer: **As ever, author neither claims nor intentionally implies ownership of the 'Transformers' brand, or any canon character or concept herein, who are copyright 1984-present Hasbro/etc and used with much love and respect to their creators.

* * *

Slipstream wasn't difficult to find – a glittering chip of cobalt excitement, easily matching speeds with the policebike cruising leisurely alongside him, down one of Deixar's quieter side streets. He might not have Whitesides' practiced elegance, just yet, and often wobbled fairly dramatically, particularly when recovering from a corner, but he was certainly the older mech's equal when it came to the level of power in his fusion core.

Thundercracker caught them up, amused, and buzzed overhead; Footloose leaned down over his shoulder and shrieked with laughter at her twin, making the blue jet _grimace_ amusedly.

"We'll race you, Slowmo!" she howled down at her brother, pinging him a location. "Bet we beat you to Screamer!"

Slipstream didn't bother to verbally acknowledge the challenge – being a groundling didn't mean he didn't have his sire's harmonics or a powerful little engine core, capable of handling jet speeds. He simply gunned his engines and accelerated dramatically away in front, leaving Whitesides half-amused and half-annoyed (and spluttering grit out of his intakes) behind him.

Slipstream beat them all to the rift by a few body-lengths, with Thundercracker deliberately holding back _just_ enough that it wouldn't be completely obvious he was letting the youngling win. The new little bike bounced on his toes and laughed exuberantly as his uncle glided in with his sister, thrusters pointed for a landing. "I win, I win," he squeaked, gleefully, doing big triumphant circles around them.

"You cheated. You cheated!" Still draped over Thundercracker's wings, Footloose flailed an arm, outraged.

Her mood didn't go unnoticed by the big Seeker. "Come on, Lou." He nudged her under the chin with a knuckle. "You sure we can't persuade you to go groundling like your brother for just a little while? You know from Auntie Lars that first alt mode doesn't mean _only _alt mode. It doesn't mean you're never going to fly, it just means you won't always have to hitch a ride when Seem leaves you eating his dust."

Slipstream nodded sagely, and she was already pouting and preparing to hit him, dropping back to the floor in the most threatening stance she could manage, anticipating a rude reply, when he spoke; "Come on, Lou. It won't be the same without you." He grinned. "Besides, teasing you gets boring when you're an easy target."

She hunched her shoulders, somewhat humbled, and shot him a halfhearted glare. "I'll think about it," she mumbled, at last.

"Atta girl!" Thundercracker grinned and gave her an affectionate cuff around the audios. "Trust me, as soon as you get into that alt-mode, time will just speed past. You'll barely even notice that you're still on the ground."

At last, Whitesides pulled up, forcing a smile, trying not to look like his core was overheating from trying to catch up. "I'll have to get Ama to find some speed limiters for you, next time we go out," he grumbled. "Barely into your new alt and you're already faster than me."

Slipstream grinned sheepishly, and bumped heads. "Sorry, Whites."

Conveniently, the little group found Skywarp still lurking close to the Rift, as they approached; apparently still smarting from his squabble, and far too stubborn to take steps to apologise, but not willing to give up and go home _quite_ yet.

"Day? Day!" Fotloose launched herself bodily at him. "Day, I changed my mind!"

Skywarp put up his hands and backed off, startled by the vehemence of the greeting. "Changed your mind about what? Am I coming in halfway through a conversation again?"

"I changed my mind, I want to be like Seem!" She attached herself around his chassis. "Can you talk to Sepp for me? Please?"

Skywarp arched a brow and gave Thundercracker a look. "What _exactly_ did you say to her?"

Thundercracker smiled, and spread his hands. "Just proved the power of the green-optic'ed monster, I guess? Can't bear for Seem to be having fun when she isn't." He glanced at the seismograph and sighed hot air from his vents at seeing a familiar wingtip protruding around one end. "Guess I'll go try and bully Screamer into going home. Again."

Skywarp gave him a dark look. "Yeah, good luck with that. Can you yank that stick out of his exhaust while you're at it?"

Thundercracker gave him a slap on the shoulder and a lopsided smile, and slipped past.

Spotting him in the periphery of his visual sensors, Starscream didn't even glance up at his wingmate's approach. "If you're here to join in abusing my audios, you can give up and go away now, because I _will_ turn them off."

"I'm not here to heckle. I'm here because I've got an idea for you, and you never know, it might even _not kill you_. Just… come here a second..." Thundercracker set his fingers on his wingmate's wings, and pulled him carefully backwards away from his seismograph.

Pulled over his centre of gravity, Starscream gave a little _yerp_ of alarm and flailed his arms, but rapidly realised his choices were limited to 'follow' or 'fall on your aft'. He elected to save his dignity.

"How about," the blue Seeker went on, using his lack of balance to steer Starscream around in a tottery half-circle, to face in the opposite direction, "you go home, get yourself a flask of high-grade, sit down, relax, and actually _defragment_ for a change."

His wingmate's protests were strangely determined; he leaned hard back into the dark hands and dug his heels in. "I can't. I've got to finish this. I need to work out where these readings are coming from."

"Right, because the Rift is suddenly going completely destabilise and cause death and destruction all round in the process _the very instant_ you take your optics off it." Thundercracker resisted the urge to cast his gaze skywards. "Remind me, how deep did you say you were saving, at the moment? Are you up to your senary storage, or are you already deeper?"

"I don't believe I said, and it's only quinary, thank you." Starscream elevated his nose, sniffily. "I can last another orn or two without needing to defragment."

"Without crashing and going into stasis, you mean?" Thundercracker sighed and fumbled with his subspace. "Well, I'm not scraping your aft up off the dirt if you fall over, so... here. At least have this if you won't go home. You need it more than I do." He brought out a tall silver flask.

The red jet gave the container a suspicious look and tucked his hands away, up to his chest, as though at any moment it might jump up and bite him, and glanced up to meet his wingmate's gaze. "_You're_ supposed to have intook that already."

"I know. Turns out I didn't need it."

Starscream narrowed his optics to a glare. "You better not be refusing fuel again," he threatened, releasing a single chastising blue finger to underline the point. "Because I'm not above sitting on you and pouring it down your intakes. I did it before, and I'll do it again in an instant-"

"No-o. I just got some from somewhere else." Thundercracker smiled in that gently chastising way he'd picked up lately, and gave the flask an encouraging little wiggle. "Pan and I shared a glass or two of high grade. To celebrate me not being her patient any more."

Starscream's manner abruptly changed; his wings perked, he straightened up and his optics brightened. "What?" he demanded, a startled look knocking the scowl off his face. "When did that happen?"

"Earlier today." Thundercracker gave him a wry smile, using his wingmate's surprise to slot the flask of energon into his hands. "You'd have found out sooner if you hadn't turned your pinger off, and were willing to you know, _talk_ to Skywarp without getting into a screaming match over nothing with him? You know that was why he came down here in the first place, right – or did you think it was for your charismatic attitude?"

Starscream pursed his lips and backed off a step, muttering something that sounded like an apology. "Maybe if didn't act like a prize idiot every once in a while, I'd indulge him every now and then."

"And maybe if you weren't being a cantankerous old glitch who acts like he's got a spanner permanently jammed up his exhaust, _he'd_ be less inclined to wind you up. Come on, it's not _all_ his fault, and if you actually _defragmented_ for a change, you might remember you don't have to take his heckling personally? You're stretched thin and fractious, and yelling at everything. Please go home."

Tired crimson optics narrowed down into a hot beam of irritation, but – miraculously – Starscream kept his vocaliser offline, for once, concentrating on uncapping the energon.

"You're not going to self-destruct from admitting you're a tiny bit fallible." Thundercracker set his hand against his friend's wing and gave him a soothing pat. "And you don't need to work so damn hard. They're not going to suddenly remember you were a Con and kick you out the instant you take a nap."

Starscream still refused to look up. "…you know that's not precisely my reasoning."

"…yeah, Starscream. I know. We'll make it worth your while."

At last, the dark face offered a fleeting, tired smile. "How, precisely. We crashed out of the Cons, and now we're stuck, just… wandering, like little lost sparklings." He didn't bother hiding his pleasure at the energon – cool, crisp, felt like it washed a little of the sludge off his spirit. "We used to _mean_ something, TC."

"And we will again, now we're all back to full strength. Right? We'll help you find something to satisfy your ambition, so you don't feel the need to work yourself to an early termination just to keep your mind occupied. Something worth your time to fight for, eh?" Thundercracker offered a gentle grin. "Something more than just us two losers hanging onto your thrusters."

Starscream gave him a reproachful look. "Don't force me to say I care about you." He waved a finger, threateningly. "Because I will _not_ be blackmailed."

"Yeah yeah." The blue Seeker chuckled. "We'd never beg a confession of affection off you. Poor Warp would probably melt out something critical at hearing it, anyway." He patted his friend's wing, affectionately. "If it means that much to you, I'll keep an optic on this silly thing for a while. Go home for a bit, Star."

"Don't call me that." The irritable sentiment was a little more genuine, this time. "You know I don't like it."

"Why not? It'_s_ your name."

"My _name_ is Star_scream_. Don't go... lopping bits off just because you've suddenly got the idea it's _unattractive_."

"You never object to being 'Screamer', and it's only since we came home you've started to object to 'Star'." Thundercracker observed, ignoring his friend's bad mood. "Ahh wait, I get it. It's what Skyfire used to call you."

Starscream's voice descended into disgusted mutterings into his drink. "Stupid… maladjusted heap of spare parts."

"He only wants to be able to talk with you again, without you threatening to shoot out his main power regulator," Thundercracker soothed. "I think that secretly, you want to be comfortable talking to _him_, too."

Starscream promptly sucked energon down the wrong intake and was reduced to spluttering for several seconds. "After he showed me up, in public?!"

"No, he tried to _apologise_ to you before you could slope off without saying goodbye and he lost his chance altogether for the next few hundred vorns."

"In front of _everyone_! As if that wasn't a calculated exercise in _humiliation_…"

"I think even _you_ know he's not quite that shallow-"

"…And he should have thought about the consequences _before_ he kicked me to the kerb!"

"Starscream."

"I know I know. Stop rocking the boat." Starscream glared down into the flask, sullen. "You're _turning__into_ Pan, I hope you realise." He gave it an irritable swirl, and took the most sparing of mouthfuls.

"Please. You need to go home, and get some rest." For the second time in as many breems, Thundercracker steered the red Seeker in a gentle half-circle to face in the vague direction of their home. "I know you've not defragmented in about ten orns. You're going to have a breakdown if you keep this up."

"Well _someone_ has to earn enough credits to keep us in enough fuel to fly."

"I know. That's why I'm going to help out, now I'm back on my feet." Thundercracker smiled at the suspicious look he got in response. "I already had my doctor's blessing, a while back, and now I don't have anything they can use as an excuse not to employ an ex-Con? Hardline's got some posts he needs to fill. Said that he'd take my history of command into account, I could apply for a post at inspector level."

"That's what you two were sneaking around discussing last night?" The tension visibly melted out of Starscream's wings.

"Yeah. We didn't want to get your hopes up in case our friendly local tyrant- I mean, in case commissioner Boxer put a nix on it." Thundercracker gave him a wry grin. "Thought we were talking about you again, huh?"

Starscream stared down at his thrusters, irritably.

Thundercracker gave him another encouraging push. "Come on, Starscream. Please? It's not logical to help me back to full strength if you self-destruct from overwork the day after, right?"

"All right, all right." Starscream put his hands up, defeated. "I'm going." He was clearly tireder than he wanted to let on, because he was quite happy to amble along on the ground with his arms drooping. "…how's Seem?"

Thundercracker walked alongside him, mostly to catch him if need be. "Yeah, the refit went well. He's just been out for a run with Whitesides," Thundercracker confirmed, with a nod. "Completely outpaced the poor guy. Whites only caught up because Seem had _stopped_, and judging by their route I bet he's sucked a ton of dust up his intakes."

"So long as that's _all_ he's been sucking."

"Don't _you_ start, as well," Thundercracker scolded, amusedly. "You're gonna give the poor guy a complex."

"He's already got one." The red jet waved a hand, airily. "But then, don't we all?" He looked askance at his wingmate and pointed a threatening finger. "Except you, of course. Better _not_ have one, after all those credits we spent getting your brain fixed."

"Hey, guys…? Guys?"

The pair turned to find Skywarp approaching from one side; behind him, the twins had gathered strangely close to Whitesides, as if uneasy.

Thundercracker gave him a curious look; the dark Seeker actually looked somewhat genuinely concerned. "What's the matter, Warp?"

"Can't you hear it?" The teleport pointed behind them, above their heads. "I think it's that thing up there."

They turned to follow his gaze; in the distant sky, too far away to see clearly, hung a small dark dot, with an odd 'tail' stretching out in a gentle curve behind it. Now they were paying attention, the agonised scream of overworked engines cut quite cleanly through the quiet air.

"That sounds like… y'know. Something falling," Skywarp added, grimly. "Right?"

Thundercracker sighed, inwardly, sensing that his carefully planned exercise in finally getting Starscream to _go home_ had just been completely scuppered. "…is that smoke?" he wondered.

"We can figure out what it is in a breem. All I know right now is that I don't want to be underneath it." Starscream gave the non-fliers a glare, and a snapped command. "All right, you gaggle of staring idiots. Get out of here. Now." When they just stared at him, he threw up his hands. "I'm not above nullraying you and _dragging_ you away! Get a move on!"

That got them moving; Whitesides shooed Slipstream away, then held out his hand for Footloose, who dithered for a moment but soon followed them.

"We better retreat to a safe distance, too," Starscream acknowledged, irritably. "I can't tell how big that is, but it'll make a nice dent in whoever it lands on."

"Shouldn't we try and catch it or something?" Skywarp wondered. "I think it's a vehicle, it might be one of ours."

"I don't think it is, Warp," Thundercracker demurred, trying to boost his visual field enough to get a better look at it before it got too close. "I'm not getting a response to hails on _any_ frequency. It's either damaged, or not local."

"And trying to catch it will only result in someone getting flattened," Starscream added. "Safe distance _now_, please…"

The stricken vessel came down hard on its belly in the ruins of an old building, in a derelict area on the Deixar side of the Rift, scattering scraps of oxidised metal and chunks of artificial rock in its wake. It skidded noisily through the heaps of old detritus, engines thundering and desperately throttling back in an attempt to stop, before its front end caught against a more solid set of broken foundations. Its skid turned into an uncontrolled cartwheel, forcing Skywarp into a hasty scramble out of the way.

It finally groaned to a difficult halt with its shattered front-end protruding over the cliff-edge. For several long moments, it just… _hung_ there, creaking, fighting vainly against gravity… until with a final gasp of straining metal it lost its grip on the edge, and the broken depths of the Rift obediently swallowed it up. The dwindling set of crunches finally faded away with a last cough of smoke.

"…ouch," Skywarp said, as though in sympathy.

"_That's_ putting it mildly." Thundercracker gunned his thrusters and glided closer to the cliff-face. "Come on, we better check it out. Whoever it is might need help."

"_Or_ we might be better served by getting out of the way, in case it blows up," Starscream sniped, nevertheless following dutifully behind. "I doubt anyone could have actually survived that."

…the vessel turned out to be a lot smaller than it had originally seemed, falling like a stone from the sky with a plume of acrid smoke billowing from a scorched hole in its flank; the three Seekers lurking warily at the edge of the rift and gazing down on it were a little smaller, but not by a large margin. The silver fuselage was barely visible in the shadowy, sunless depths of the canyon.

"OK, so, that's _definitely_ not one of ours," Skywarp pointed out, needlessly, as though the alien writing and tiny hatches it had shed in passing weren't enough of a clue. "Where'd you reckon it came from?"

"Its design isn't something I'm familiar with." Starscream gingerly picked up one of the broken plates that had sheared off as the vessel had tumbled past. The metal still felt hot against his fingertips. "I have no doubt we could cross-reference the writing with what we have in the library, though. If it's remotely local, it'll be on file."

"…whoa, hey, did you see that?" Before his trine-mates could move to catch him, Skywarp had gathered his feet underneath himself and pushed off the edge.

"Skywarp!" Starscream snapped. "What in Pit are you doing?"

The teleport caught himself in an untidy hover, a body length or two beneath them. "There's something come out of it!" He pointed into the depths. "C'mon, guys, you can't have missed it, it was huge. Down there, look."

"Where?" Thundercracker followed his pointing arm, retuning his vision to probe into the gloom. "I don't see anything."

Skywarp looked for himself, again, and grunted annoyedly at realising the thing he'd seen _had_ in fact vanished behind one of the broken piles of jagged rock below.

"What did it look like?" Starscream chased.

"It was brownish, and kinda fuzzy." Skywarp frowned, consideringly, thinking back to his time spent on Earth. "...maybe we've been invaded by dust bunnies. Humans had problems with them, remember?"

Even Starscream couldn't help cracking a smile at that. "I think you need to look up the term 'dust bunny', Skywarp," he suggested, dryly. "It's probably just junk, blown in from further up."

The teleport made a dismissive _pfft_-noise, killed his thrusters and promptly dropped out of sight again. "Well I'm gonna go try catch it. You can dissect it and tell us what it is."

"Thank you, Skywarp." Starscream sighed and commented, to no-one in particular; "Well I'm not scraping you off the walls when you get yourself blown up again."

Next second, and he found out his attempt to send the twins home had been rather a failure, as well, when Footloose appeared out of nowhere and flung herself off the edge, determined not to miss out on whatever exciting thing her sire was up to. She vanished in a flicker of lilac; she might not be able to _fly_ but she'd had plenty of experience in falling off tall things, and a series of short hops with her teleport would get her down before she picked up much speed. Landing without spreading herself over too many square yards of ground had become one of her specialities.

Slipstream wasn't very far behind her. He gathered himself to jump after her; a morbid fear of _flying_ didn't mean he wasn't just as good at getting down off things, and had as good a grasp of 'cascade teleporting' as his sister.

…before he could jump, Starscream's attention landed squarely on him. "Slipstream!" he barked, startling the youngster into a wide-eyed retreat from the edge. "You even _think_ about following them, and I'll deactivate your transformation subroutines for at least ten orns. _While you're in your alt mode_. Got that?"

"But Lucy-"

"-is an idiot like her sire, and we're not talking about her. I said, _got it_?"

Slipstream nodded hastily; being trapped in that hostile crimson glare had a bigger effect on him than it did on Footloose. "Got it!"

0o0o0o0o0

Even if a mech ignored the unfamiliar writing on it, the vessel was clearly of alien origin, Skywarp mused, doing a cautious half-circuit around it and running a curious hand over the buckled mess of twisted fuselage. Deep inside, the rumble and crack of fire made the whole machine tremble. It had probably once been a sleek little shuttle, smooth and graceful with atmosphere-capable wings, but non-sentient. A powerful electric field tugged on the circuits in his palm, but it didn't feel like any actual _thoughts_ accompanied it. His low-intensity greeting broadcasts went unanswered.

The gash that had brought it down ran almost full length up one engine, level with his chest, revealing unfamiliar circuits and fuel lines and the heavy mass of a graviton core. He ran his fingers along the shredded metal, thoughtfully; the jagged edges reminded him of collision damage, rather than the intense heat of a weapon strike. Maybe it had just taken a wrong turn, somewhere out there?

"You'd love to get a good look at this, Screamer," he called up. "Want me to bring it up for you?"

"Not yet," Starscream demurred. His scratchy voice sounded terribly distant, away at ground level. "We don't know if it's safe and I'm getting some worrying readings off its central generator. You might want to get to a safe distance."

"Nah, it looks okay. It's just got a weird engine. I'll keep a sensor on it and move out if it gets worse, right?"

Skywarp had more to say, but never got the chance. Something small, pale brown and fuzzy-looking darted out of a hole in the vessel's side and right over his foot – he leaped back, alarmed, and slammed his wings against the wall of the ravine, dislodging a small cascade of rubble. The thing dove for cover close to the rocky walls.

"Skywarp? Are you all right?" Thundercracker's deep voice carried better than his wingmate's. "What's happening down there?"

"Did you see that?!" Stupid question, of course they wouldn't have, way down here. He could barely see _them_, away at the top of the cliffs. "The thing I saw before! It's a, a… fuzzy alien thing!"

Skywarp lunged for the spot he'd seen it vanish into, clipping a wing on the sheer walls of the ravine in his haste to try and see what it was. Definitely a creature, not just windblown debris!

As he rounded the little corner, however... the hole in the cliff became visible, and his enthusiasm deflated. Whatever it was... had gone underground. Skywarp fidgeted his thrusters, and glanced back over his shoulder, to check no-one had seen his _wince_. "Guys? Uh-… It's gone underground. Can you send me a probe or something?"

"I'll see what I have on the seismograph," Starscream offered, unexpectedly, although his words carried a flavour of long-suffering resignation. "So we can get you an answer before the thing blows up…"

The soft _slap _of shifting air as one of his sparklings appeared attracted his attention; Skywarp turned just in time to watch Footloose rematerialise a foot shy of the ground, and land with a _thump _and a squeak on the broken rock.

"Lucy," he sighed, watching her pick herself up. "Did you not see this thing crash spectacularly, or something? What are you doing down here?"

She brushed grit off her knees. "I wanted to help."

"You mean, you don't want to miss out." He managed a glare, and pointed up. "It's not safe down here. You need to get back up on solid ground, and stay with the guys."

She gave him her most inoffensive, honest face. "Can't fly," she reminded. "And it's not so bad down here. Just... jaggy."

"You _know_ I meant _this_ isn't safe," he gestured to the alien spacecraft, "and I know for a fact that you've teleported up onto higher things than the top of the Rift."

"Maybe I just wanna stay with you," Footloose asserted, clinging to his arm. "Feel safe with you."

Her expression was aggressive and her manner determinedly forwards, but Skywarp could feel her trembling and knew it was mostly a front. His mood softened, a fraction. "Well you better not be a brat, or I'll take you back up there myself." He patted her head, just hard enough to be gently chastising. "_F__or now_ you can stay with me. You'll probably raise all kinds of Pit if you go back topside anyway. Let's just…" A quick glance at the jagged mouth in the cliff face put an awkwardness back into his manner. "…let's see what we can, uh, figure out. Might not be here for so long ourselves."

Footloose shrank back into his wings. "…what's down there?"

Skywarp gave her a glance. "You do know _why _I'm down here, right, Button?" He could hear strange, muted little clicks and squeaks filtering up from somewhere in the distance, and the gleam of tiny lights occasionally flashed in the gloom, but he baulked at the idea of actually _approaching_ them. It was very _dark_, down there. Very... _undergroundy_.

-_how's it, warp?_- Thundercracker pinged, cautiously, switching to a more private channel to avoid unduly alarming Skywarp's company.

Skywarp shifted from one thruster to the other, trying to make his mind up. -_see little lights_- he offered. -_noises too_-

-…_and?_- Starscream interjected.

-_camera?_-

-_nothing useful. Check it later_-

-_no,_ _send Seem, need to check it out now-_

_-not a chance. Get back up here!-_

_-might blow up!-_

_-Come. Back-_

Skywarp rolled his eyes and shook his head. "They're not sending reinforcements, squirt. Guess we better check it out ourselves."

Starscream's audios were apparently better than Skywarp gave them credit. -_don't you dare, Warp_-

Next astro-second and Thundercracker added to the protest. -_come on, don't be a glitch, come back_-

-_shut up, guys_- Skywarp shot both a filthy image that summed up his current opinion of their "over-reacting". -_just getting a look. Won't be long_-

He advanced a step or two into the mouth of the chasm; it was just a handsbreadth wider than his wingspan, allowing him to walk down it without clipping his wings on either side. _Okay, Skywarp_, he reassured himself. _The roof hasn't fallen in yet. It's all ok. _

"Da-ayy," Footloose whined, shifting from foot to foot.

He glanced back over his shoulder; she was stuck at the threshold, as though there were a sheet of glass stopping her advancing. "I'm not gonna go far, ok?" he explained, holding out his hand to her. "Just gonna see how far it goes. You can come if you want, but I'm not forcing you."

"What's the other option?" She dithered in the entrance.

"You go back up to the top, and stay with TC."

The _what, and miss out?_ in her expression was almost audible, it was so clear; she skittered forwards and wrapped around his hand, optics wide, uneasy. "Ok I'm going to stay with you."

"All right." He gave her little hand a squeeze, and advanced another few steps into the increasing gloom, boosting the sensitivity of his visual circuitry in an effort to see anything. _Never thought I'd ever wanna be an Autobot, but a set of headlights would be reeeaally useful, right now. _

-_n__ot coming to get you if you freak out down there_- Starscream griped, but his voice had a distorted quality to it. The rocks were obviously interfering with transmission. -_Can get yourself out.-_

The uneven, jagged ground creaked and broke under two sets of heavy feet, as the two machines slowly advanced. The tunnel struck Skywarp as distinctly seismically-generated, not mech-built, which was more than a teensy bit worrying, especially after seeing Screamer's obsession over his seismographs earlier. If the Rift _was_ active and they _were_ stuck in here when it decided to all kick off…? _I know he's torqued at me, but he'll tell us if anything's going wrong_, the teleport consoled himself. _Besides, we'll probably hear it, down here in the bowels of the planet. _He had to work hard to resist a shudder. Far behind, the stricken shuttle still groaned and crackled.

"Okay we can't find it, can we go back now?" Footloose whined, softly.

Skywarp glanced down at her; the glow from her greenish optics gave her face a strangely nauseated look. "Not much further, squirt. I see little lights, up ahead."

Footloose peered into the gloom in front; she'd seen them too, but hadn't wanted to say so. "They're probably some natural thing," she suggested, hopefully. "You know. Swamp gas."

Skywarp managed a little snerk of amusement. "And they say _I_ watched too much TV." The tunnel was narrowing a bit, though, if he wanted to go any further he'd have to edge _sideways_ through the gap ahead, and clamber over an uneven ridge of rock. Sure, the tunnel widened back out after the "squeeze", but he wasn't sure he wanted to go _that_ far just yet… "All right. I guess we're not gonna get any closer to whatever they are anyway, are we?"

Starscream's voice intruded onto his thoughts. –_Warp, get out of there._-

The teleport sighed to himself. One or two little panic-attacks underground, and Screamer automatically assumed the worst. -_all ok, Screamer. Found something. Relax?_- he shot back.

-_no, ship's core unstable, might be about to blow, just get out of there!_-

Skywarp froze, horrified. -_What?-_

Footloose squeaked in alarm as her sire's fingers tightened around her own, and attempted to jerk her hand free, but Skywarp's grip was tighter, and when she later thought about it, she recognised it probably saved both their lives. It stopped her _running_, which would have forced him to _chase her_, right into the onrushing danger.

As if in agreement with the red seeker, the shuttle gave a cough and a low groaning rumble, deeper than before, like a slowly dying fusion reactor, collapsing under its own scorching bulk. Skywarp scooped Footloose up against him and leaped for the gap in front, unthinking; it was a tiny fraction too narrow to get through without the aid of his teleport, but the pillars of rock would shield them from the blast, and they could triangulate their way out later.

He'd barely rematerialised before something grabbed his left leg, and yanked him out of the air. He landed with a yelp, hard enough on his front to shatter the tough crystal copolymer of his cockpit; it was a little miracle that he managed not to land square on top of Footloose. The little femme tumbled out of his arms and gave an unashamed sob of fright, skidding on her stomach across the rocks.

Skywarp seized her ankle and yanked her back under his wings; she squealed in pain as the rocks scoured off a layer of surface enamel, but he ignored it, tucking her right up close to his chassis and curling down over her.

A distant roar made the air shiver, and after an astro-second the firestorm swept overhead, condensed into a plume of intense blue heat by the narrow tunnel. The subsequent rockfall echoed up the tunnel, seeming to go on forever, a deluge of shattering rocks, closing off the mouth of the tunnel in the direction from which the two idiots had come.

Only when the dust had settled and the sounds of falling debris had faded into a painful silence did Skywarp let himself uncurl from his ball; he thrummed his fans and coughed grit from his venting, and peered into the dust-filled dark, looking for the green glitter of his little girl's optics. "Footloose? Button, are you there?" he croaked. "Are you all right?"

The vibrating little mound of dirty plating with a spiky, discordant electric field, tucked up close to his broken cockpit, proved to be Footloose. After a moment or two of gentle coaxing, she finally relit her optics and uncurled, and Skywarp was intensely relieved to find she was – miraculously – fine. His broad wings had sheltered her from the blistering heat and cascade of rocks. She was fizzing with concerned static, and all over him with careful little fingers, checking none of his extensive list of damages were going to prove fatal, but otherwise unhurt.

Content that Footloose was going to be just fine, Skywarp turned his attention inwards. Something felt very wrong. Not his wings, they just hurt where the heat had blistered the paint and crisped away a handful of sensors. Not his chest, either; so he'd smashed his cockpit, no big deal, there were no actual sensors there. No, the… _wrongness_… was limited to his left leg, and it didn't _hurt_, precisely… It just felt… cold. _Heavy_. Not even really like it was weighed down, it was just… like someone had snipped his actuators and left him with no motor control at all from the hip down.

…he didn't even have to look to know what the problem was, but he looked anyway. His _right_ thruster was fine. His _left_ thruster, on the other hand, just… stopped, abruptly, a third of the way down, where the rock started. He groaned, miserably, and let his head drop down between his arms. He'd jumped without a good view of where he was going, and had quantum entangled his left leg with the rocks – literally mixed the two different sets of atoms of the two different objects together into the same place. The only way to get out? Would be to cut his leg off altogether. So until such a time as he could find a knife, he was trapped. _Underground_.

"All right, Lucy?" He waited until Footloose had stopped checking his hurts and he'd secured her gaze before continuing. "You need to go to the surface and get help," he instructed, a lot more calmly than he actually felt. It took every ounce of self control just to keep the static from his voice. "And you need to do it the long way. This fissure should take you up, I can feel a breeze and you can follow it. No teleporting!"

"It would be quicker-" she protested, but he lifted a finger for quiet and she actually did as told for once.

"You've seen my leg, haven't you?"

She nodded.

"What happens if you misjudge things like I did and get _yourself_ stuck too? Who's gonna find us? If you even survive! So no teleporting until you're back on the surface and can see where you're going. Please?"

She whimpered and rubbed cheeks with him, nodding. "But I don't want to leave you alone, Day. Not hurt like this."

"I don't want you to go either, spark," he admitted. "But I want to get out of here, and if my transmitter's not broken? It's being blocked by all this rock, 'cause I can't raise the guys."

"If-… if I dug your leg out-"

"Lucy." He leaned his head against hers, felt her little arms go around his neck.

"Please, Day, there's got to be _some_thing-"

"The only thing you can do for me right now? Is go get help. Please. I'm not exactly gonna be going anywhere. Okay? Please?"

At last, she nodded, and scuttled away down the narrow corridor in the stone, looking back at him every few steps. At least, he consoled himself, there was very little likelihood of her getting lost; his little family might not be known for their brains, but their sense of direction was second to none.

_As for __you__, you prize-winning idiot… you're all right_, he scolded himself, watching as the green glow faded out and finally disappeared, leaving the place lit only by the ominous warning-light red of his own optics. _You're fine. Aside from the thruster, you're not so badly injured. You're just stuck down here for a bit, in the dark. No worse than a run-in with the Auto-dorks. So you don't need to overreact, right? __Don't__ need to overreact. _

_Come on, what would TC do in this sort of situation? He'd be calm and collected and remind you that you're not __that__ far und-… away from friends, all you have to do is wait for Lou to get back topside and they can track her positioning all the way back down here and get you out. __Easy__. Right?_

…_Could take Lucy a while to find her way up, though. And it could take 'em a while to triangulate where you are, though. And damn, it'll sure take 'em a while to __dig__ all the way down here. All the way down here through all these-… all these __rocks__-…_

He squelched his nerves, annoyed, and closed his fingers into fists in an attempt to stop his hands vibrating. "You don't need to _overreact_, Skywarp," he said, out loud, as though it would help him to believe it. "You've not even been down here for a breem, you useless wuss. Call yourself a Decepticon?" He examined his scuffed fingers, and the purple enamel that his optics had stained a murky magenta, like bad energon. "Lucy will be back any time soon."

_Assuming she took your advice and kept her gate offline. What if she went and blended herself with the rocks? Because damn, she's still got your impulsive streak and might still think she knows better than you!_

…_Don't__ need to overreact._ He clenched his fists tighter, feeling his servos protest, and offlined his optics, concentrated on trying to convince himself he was back on the surface. _Come on, just 'cause you're out of the Cons doesn't mean you've suddenly gone soft. Right? You're gonna be a sensible, patient, reasonable mech, and not __overreact__ or __overthink__ or go crazy or anything. It's just dark, that's all. Dark. Pretend it's night, or something._

A scuffle of something dragging through the dust – maybe soft little feet? – and a curious _chirp?_ from nearby attracted his attention. Those damn fuzzy… dustbunny-alien-whatevertheyweres. He shrank back, hiking his wings a little, defensively. It was their fault he was trapped down here. If he'd not followed what if it was a trap? The thought blindsided him. What if they'd _wanted_ him to follow? To trap him here, on purpose? What if they'd blown their own ship up, on purpose?

"What do you want?" he challenged, out loud, struggling to keep the uneasy distortions from his voice.

The crimson glitter from his optics wasn't quite strong enough to see by, but there were definitely shadows, darting about in the peripheries of his vision. Shadows, and freckles of glitter where the glow of his optics reflected off… _something.__ Eyes._ Lots of tiny eyes.

There was something indefinably horrible about all those little eyes, all fixed on him, creeping closer. Without even realising he was doing it, Skywarp charged his weaponry, just in case. _Well, you won't get me without a fight._

The spots of heat in his arms weren't so comforting as normal. And his fans sounded far too loud.

Something chirped, again, a clicky little spot of sound close to his elbow. Skywarp swiped at it, alarmed, and felt his fingers connect with something warm and yielding before the blow smacked it away. "Ah! Frag-!" He swallowed the exclamation and had to resist the urge to shoot at it. The way his luck was going, the shot would bounce off the walls and hit _him._

_Come on, Lou. Please hurry._

His fans hitched, a soft little stutter of gulping noise that he found himself focusing on.

"Don't need to overreact, Skywarp," he scolded, firmly. "She's not an idiot. Stay calm."

_But she could be __dead__. Merged her little spark with the rocks and fizzled out. That's __worth__ overreacting about._

…_Pit sake, Warp, please stay calm!_

The trapped seeker concentrated on slowing his stuttering fans, getting the air moving properly inside him again. Cold in, hot out. Felt like he was _melting_, down here. No air. No breeze. The rocks sucked up the heat his stressed systems poured out, and dutifully reflected it back at him.

"What do you want?" he challenged, unable to get the force he wanted behind his words. "There's easier ways of getting scrap metal than _murder_! Let me out of here, right now."

His spark felt constricted, a hot, swollen drop of lead in his chassis, trying to spill free of its magnetic bottle. Tight pain accompanied every not-so-subtle shift in harmonic.

_Going to die down here; you know that, right? Your spark is already losing cohesion, harmonic uncoiling, flickering out. And your stupid hands-… is that just the dark playing tricks? Are you __sure __they're not less brightly coloured than they were just a breem ago?_

"Just get your fans running smoothly," he whispered encouragement to himself, clenched hands trembling. "Cool down, think straight, right? Cool down, think straight…"

Something skittered across his wings – to the raw, abused sensors, it felt like a dozen little sets of feet, each tipped with a needle. He gave an involuntary cry of alarm and bucked; something squeaked angrily, very close to his audio, but the weight vanished and there was a soft _thump_ as it landed in the dust.

_Having the gremlins crawling __on __him proved the final straw. __Just get out of here, you giant lumpen idiot! Get out! _

The words formed a drumbeat in his mind – repeating over and over, inescapable, impossible to ignore, a thudding cyclical pulse of intangible noise that seemed to go with every tiny shift in his spark's harmonic. _Get Out. Get Out. Get Out. Get Out._

"…get me out," he pleaded, not sure who he was talking to, fingers clawing through the dust. "Oh damn oh Primus get me out of here…!"

Skywarp's tortured semi-logic quailed before the weight of the spark-deep fear that had boiled up out of his core. _But your leg-_ it protested, feebly.

-_is disposable!_ he decided. Logic didn't really stand a chance. Shedding one broken body part was an acceptable sacrifice. It'd have to go anyway. And he wasn't sitting down here with these monsters looking for scrap iron for _any longer than he absolutely had to._

No knife was no barrier to escape, for the desperate. The flaring pain all up his thigh and into his back as he tore into his own substructure? Barely noticed. Connectors tore away beneath his frantic, clawing fingers. Energon spat from ruptured lines, coating the rocks and fizzing a lilac fluorescence into the gloom.

_get out get out get out_

The instant his leg was free – the instant he'd shredded his way through enough connectors to tear himself apart at the knee – he went against every instruction he'd ever given Footloose and teleported himself as far _up _as he could possibly manage.

_Out!_

Pain flashed all down his insides – hard, cold pain, like his spark had frozen hard in his chassis, and he was momentarily convinced that he'd misjudged his destination and rematerialised inside something solid and this was it, this was the end and serve you right for panicking you moron-

…the world that obediently reappeared beneath his broken thrusters was reassuringly cool and familiar. Unfortunately, so was the gravity. The relief that he was physically no worse off than he had been a second ago, no more body parts melted into the environment, turned immediately into _ohshit falling!_

Skywarp gave an unashamed yelp of alarm and felt gravity close its fingers around him. The one thing almost as bad as being trapped underground, and he'd succeeded in shoving himself right into it! He'd gone from one bad situation to another one comparable in awfulness. His one good thruster was far from strong enough to keep him in the air; the scramble to remain airborne and save himself from any more damage was over almost before it had begun. All he managed to do was to slow his fall a little.

Thankfully, he didn't have far to travel. A few seconds of freefall culminated in a good solid _whunch_ in a heap of old recycling. Scrap metal cascaded briefly across his flailing limbs and pain jangled all down his abused, blistered wings, but it was short-lived.

For a full breem, all he found he could do was lay on his back in the junkheap and wheeze blissfully cold air through his venting, letting it flow unhindered through his chassis, soothe the agonising heat out of his overtaxed spark. The stars formed a reassuring, relaxing vista overhead.

_You're not underground any more, and you're not falling_._ Thank Primus for small mercies. _

As soon as the urge to dissolve into helpless, relieved static had faded, Skywarp pinged a positional signal at his wingmates, _come find me, guys_, but it felt underpowered. The intense heat had probably crisped his antenna.

Oh well. The worst that could happen was that he endured Screamer chewing his audios for a bit longer for being a moron, and Footloose's woebegone look for making her crawl all the way up and getting out before she had. If they were all safe and happy and non-blown-up, he figured he could handle that.


	3. Chapter 3

**Future Tense - Chapter Three**

**Disclaimer: **As ever, author neither claims nor intentionally implies ownership of the 'Transformers' brand, or any canon character or concept herein, who are copyright 1984-present Hasbro/etc and used with much love and respect to their creators.

* * *

The heap of old recycling was prickly and uncomfortable against Skywarp's heat-damaged wings, but it was also cold, and he couldn't bring himself to try and get up. Not as if he was going to get anywhere, after all. The lack of lower left leg had rather put paid to his overall mobility – couldn't stay in the air, and couldn't walk either. He could always make up an excuse if pushed; better to stay here and make it easier for his wingmates to find him, right?

Plus, he wasn't leaking any more, now he'd finally persuaded his self-repair systems to pinch off the damaged fuel lines, and any residual energon left in the lines had crystallised off. Wasn't going bleed himself completely dry, grey out, and blend in with the rest of the rubbish.

_What were you trying to prove, anyway, huh?_ he scolded himself, settling down for what might be a looong wait. _Going underground? You should have known it'd all go to Pit even if you managed not to freak out – fliers going burrowing about in the undercity? Some kinda blasphemy, surely. And why didn't you just go __up__, when you realised that thing was gonna blow? Not as if you didn't teleport _anyway_! Just a microsecond more thinking would have saved you from all this._

The contrails streaking through the sky reassured him; two glittering snow-bright lines across the velvet dark. _At least the guys are all right. Didn't get caught in the blast._

He set up an automatic subspace beacon to ping his whereabouts to any machines in the general vicinity, and offlined his optics, settled into a doze to preserve what fuel he had left. Could be here a while, he reasoned. Stupid transmitter seemed to have taken some heat damage, his range was limited to maybe a couple of hundred yards at most. Oh well. Wasn't as if he'd be here for long, he mused, feeling his abused, stressed-out systems gradually click over into a pleasant dormancy. Patrols usually came past the recycling facilities, wouldn't be long before someone found him. His 'lurid, horrible' purple colouring wasn't the best camouflage either, so it wasn't like they wouldn't be able to spot-

"Hello!"

A rustle in the junk and an unexpected little voice startled him out of his energy-preserving doze, and he onlined his optics to find a smiling little face with bright blue optics gazing down at him from somewhere above his head.

"What are you doing in there?" the little femme went on, curiously.

"Stargazing," he replied, more gruffly than he intended, wondering where the little brat had magically appeared from, because she looked suspiciously like a sparkling and they in turn usually meant nosey guardians. Great.

She perked her head and frowned at him, confused.

"I fell in," Skywarp clarified, tiredly.

"Is that how you hurt your leg?" She peered down at his knee.

"No, _m_y hurt leg is why I fell in. Couldn't stay airborne."

"How did you hurt it?" She disappeared from view, apparently to examine his damaged knee.

Skywarp sighed the stale air from his core. "Listen, do you have parents anywhere? Do you think you could maybe… fetch them, or something useful?"

"I can get my Day!" she agreed, rustling about. "He's nearby. Day?"

"Oh, there you are. Come on, Blink, come away from there," a distant (and strangely familiar) voice called out. "We need to get you to auntie before my shift, remember?"

"I know, but I'm talking to the mech in the recycling," the little femme protested. "He needs us to help."

"We don't have time for make-believe today, bitlet, I already told you I was running late. Come on. Please?" The voice gradually got louder as its owner approached. "We can play later, after my shift."

"But you're always too tired after work, Day," the sparkling reminded, sadly, turning to watch her carer approach. "And we need to help this Seeker. He's been hurt."

"Seeker?" As Skywarp had half anticipated, from the soft male cadence he could hear in the distance, the owner of the voice turned out to be Whitesides. The bike's optics met his own for a fraction of a second, before he leaped away, as though someone had jabbed him in the side with something sharp. "What in Pit-" he blurted, involuntarily. "Skywarp? H-how did you get there? Where have you-"

"Look, it'd be really nice if you stopped gawping at me, and just called TC," Skywarp interrupted, tiredly. "My transmitter's broken."

"Um, uh, yessir, okay sir! Right away. Uhh." He glanced down at his sparkling – 'Blink', the teleport figured – who was watching him expectantly. "Okay, bitlet. You stay here and look after mister Skywarp, all right?" He stroked her 'bunches', distractedly. "I need to call for a paramedic…"

"Yes, Day," the sparkling agreed, cheerfully, butting her small head up into his palm.

Well, this must explain why the bike was sneaking around in this unfamiliar part of the district. Hiding the sparkling from his room-mates. _One fling too many, huh?_ Skywarp wondered, privately, giving the constable a suspicious look. _Guess it had to happen sometime._

Blink treated him to another of those huge smiles. She didn't look very old at all, Skywarp realised – maybe just a full solar orbit, at most. A little older than his twins had been, when they had shown up in Vantage's lap, while he was still, ah, 'working' (in the loosest possible interpretation of the word) on that horrible mud-ball world, but certainly not anywhere near being an _adult_. "Skywarp," she greeted, as though practising his name. "Where did you come from?"

"I live here."

She perked her head. "…in the recycling?"

"No-oo, in Deixar."

"Really?" Her face creased in a curious smile and perked her bunches – most likely little external sensory boutons, and probably why she'd picked up his signal so well. "When did you move in? I've never seen you before. You'll get on well with the other jets here, Day says they get very lonely."

"Ugh, tell me about it." He didn't bother to correct her that he _was_ one of the other jets.

"Where did you come from before here? Because you're very big, for a Seeker," she pointed out.

It figured that the product of Whitesides' spark would be _chatty_, Skywarp considered, uncharitably, wondering if she'd pay any attention if he explained he _just _wanted some peace and quiet? "Not really," he demurred, tiredly. "No bigger than the other guys."

"Maybe it's all the bits you're laying in making you look bigger," she agreed, although her little brows were pulled together in a frown. "You're definitely more boxy, though." She scooted herself through the scrap and fetched up by the point of his shoulder. "Your guns are on the outside, too." She patted the closest of his cannons.

He gave her a suspicious look. "Your imagination is _way_ too active, kid."

She giggled. "I know. Day says so, too," she agreed. "But I'm being serious, this time! Aren't I, Day?" She looked over at her parent. "He's bigger than your boss, isn't he?"

Whitesides made a face, and avoided the question.

"You kept _her_ secret," Skywarp pointed out, watching as the smaller mech halted nearby. "Who've you been mucking about with?"

Whitesides looked down at his feet and mumbled something unintelligible, before adding; "Ambulance will be here soon."

"O-kay…" Skywarp gave him a curious look. _Either the kid was a sore point, or he was disappointed at finally being rumbled_. "Where do you stash her when you have a shift? Back with Ama, or what?"

Whitesides just made another of those awkward, meaningless noises and got himself settled close to Skywarp's thrusters to wait for the ambulance. Blink was the one to answer, in his stead, settling into the uncomfortable Policebot's lap. "It's just me and Day. I haven't got an Ama." She didn't look particularly bothered by the revelation, though. "My aunties look after me when Day can't."

Whitesides refused to meet Skywarp's probing gaze; he fussed with the strands of ribbon tied around the sensory boutons on the sides of the little femme's helm. "You're making a big deal out of nothing, sir." His words came out as a quiet mumble.

Skywarp quirked a suspicious-curious brow. "Right. Of course. Totally unimportant." As much as he wanted to grill Central Station's resident drama-hound for juicy gossip, he knew from experience that it was going to take some imaginative _sneakery_ to get it out of him if he was involved.

After a breem or two of reluctant half-discussion, the _whuu-up!_ of sirens announced the arrival of a paramedic. The rugged little green all-terrain vehicle unfolded itself into a stocky, smiling little mech, bristling with built-in medical equipment. "Hi!" he greeted, with a wave. "Someone called an ambulance?"

Whitesides went out to greet him, looking relieved to have got away from the touchy subject of his offspring. "No offence, but I hope that's not you, Braze," he said, dryly. "Because he's pretty large."

"Nono, I'm just here as First Response. Flatliner's following me, but he's a bit further back, got held up just outside the depot." The medic jerked a thumb back over his shoulder. "Where's the casualty?"

"Over here…" Whitesides waved an arm in Skywarp's direction.

The medic scarcely even blinked at the sight of the downed flier. "Hello there, sir," he greeted, with a friendly smile, acting as if it were the most natural thing ever to find a Seeker with an amputated leg in a heap of old garbage. "You must be the one we need to get to hospital, eh?"

Skywarp just made a face at him, lips pursed in an irritable pout. _I-don't-want-your-small-talk_ fairly oozed out of every vent.

"All right, then." The paramedic – Blaze? Braze? Whatever his name was – was obviously used to seeing patients on a bad day because he acted like the teleport had _agreed_, not sat and glared. "Let me just get this in place…" he plucked a silvery brace out of his subspace, "…so you don't get any more dirt in there, then we can get you out and fixed up. Sound fair?"

"So long as you quit gabbing and hurry up about it." Skywarp levelled a glare at his helper, but it didn't quite have the desired effect. He lifted his injured leg (trying not to concentrate too hard on the amputated body part), and watched as the smaller mech carefully brushed away the loose bits of grit and broken plate before fastening the cup-shaped device around his knee. The soothing chill of inbuilt coolant relieved the worst of the bristling hurt.

"Feel okay?" the medic prompted, holding out his hands.

"Just help me up," Skywarp grumbled, slithering through the recycling in his effort to stand. "I'm not an invalid." _And I don't need any over-eager Autobot groundling with a lunatic grin helping me, either._ "I can still walk."

"Well, all right, if you think so." The paramedic sounded doubtful, but took an arm and helped him carefully back to his wobbly remaining thruster anyway.

Skywarp propped himself up on a convenient bit of old scaffolding and glared hard enough to 'scare' his medic away a step or two. Okay, so… huh. How _was_ he supposed to walk? _Yet again, you fail to think these things through, Warp._ He studied the ground and clung to his crutch. This wasn't going to be easy. At least he didn't have a lot of ground to cover – the scuffed little green flatbed ambulance that had arrived to carry him to hospital had got as close as it could.

Braze endured watching the dark Seeker attempt to hop/hobble for only a few moments; long enough for him to catch his crutch on his wings and almost fall over twice in as many steps. "Come on, sir." The stocky little mech slotted himself under the Seeker's arm and walked carefully with him to the flatbed ambulance. "No offence, but it'll take you all day to get to hospital, at this rate."

Skywarp glared, for emphasis, but accepted defeat and let himself be helped, figuring it was better than having to swallow his pride and ask for assistance. It'd probably be more wounding to his dignity if he went flat on his face in front of the Policedork and his brat, anyway, because they sure wouldn't let him forget it.

Whitesides followed close behind them the whole way to hospital, with Blink sat on his back, clinging to his forequarters with an ease that belied long practice. Skywarp watched her out of the periphery of his vision, wondering why he'd never seen the little one before – wasn't as if she was a shy, retiring little sparkling that spent all its time hiding behind the furniture, after all. If stashed somewhere secret, from what he'd seen so far he had no doubt at all that she'd probably find her own way out. And if she stayed with "aunties", well, Squeaky wouldn't have been able to keep something like _that_ secret for long…

Blink noticed him watching her, and waved. Skywarp made an awkward face and wiggled his fingers, briefly.

The ambulance finally drew up at the rear of the district general; a couple of bored, uninterested nurses were chatting quietly outside on their break, and a harassed-looking security guard stood nearby, wreathed in vapours and sucking busily at a flashstick, but that was it. Skywarp hid his little sigh of relief that he wouldn't have to endure the attention of dozens of nosey Autobots. He might technically not be a Decepticon any more, but there were still a lot of bad feelings on both sides, and having to endure and the sneery, holier-than-thou expressions would only push him into a rage. That was _guaranteed_ to make him fall flat on his face.

He pushed himself to his feet, and managed to stand unaided for all of about an astrosecond before his wings pulled him off-balance and he had to grab Flatliner's cab to stay upright. Braze cheerfully helped him hobble through the back doors into the emergency department and over to the closest empty berth, and made sure he was comfortable before heading off to call the senior on-duty medic.

The sudden quiet as soon as the paramedic pulled the privacy screen closed was a blessed relief. If not for his poor, painful wings, which made it really hard to lay back, relax and gather his thoughts, it would have been easy to ignore the little murmury voices outside and get some well-deserved recharge.

Soon as he was back in one piece, he resolved, he was going to grab a remote camera and go look for that whatever-it-was in the rift. Fragging _dare_ they blow him up.

"Sir?"

Skywarp shook himself awake; one of the nurses he'd seen outside had put his head around the privacy screen. "What?" The words came out more surly than he'd intended, but he couldn't bring himself to feel sorry for it.

"Just checking if you were awake." The nurse ducked in through the screen; he looked like a kind of skinny, dark blue version of Forceps. "Doctor wanted me to see if you needed any painkillers before they assess you."

"I tore half my leg off, what do _you_ think?" Skywarp gestured irritably at his knee brace.

"I figured as much." The mech smiled, apologetically, and unspooled a temporary fuel rig. "Sit tight and I'll give you a shot. We'll try get some fresh energon into you, while we're at it." He hunted a suitable fuel line close to the surface, across the top edge of his patient's wings where the plating wasn't quite so solid. "Once you're stabilised, the doctors can see about getting your knee fixed up."

Skywarp put up with the gentle manhandling with a sullen patience. Some energon _would_ be nice, he resolved. Probably could stand to be kinda grateful.

Before the nurse was finished, a skinny, smiling little green protoform pushing a trolley of equipment appeared from behind the privacy screen – Skywarp felt his lip curl, involuntarily. _Just_ what he needed, _another_ inane grinning idiot to heckle him.

"Hi," the newcomer greeted, ignoring the Seeker's sour look. "My name's Fine-tune, but most folk here call me Patches. I'm going to just check you over, make sure you're stable before they come down and collect you for surgery, all right?"

"Are you lot gonna try and _talk_ me fixed, or something?"

Patches forced a smile, and bent to carefully unclasp the brace. "So what's your name?" she wondered, picking a wash-bottle off her trolley and carefully rinsing the last slivers of energon crystal and broken plating out of the damaged knee-joint.

Skywarp gave her a hard look. "Are you really that stupid?"

Her optics visibly brightened, alarmed. "Uh, n-no sir, just-… wanted to know who I was treating."

"Well go suck on someone else's sump, I'm not playing any stupid Autobot games." He folded his arms. "Just fix me and let me go home."

"Of-… of course, sir. Uh-…" She straightened and wiped her hands, awkwardly. "I, uh, I think I'll need to call Resector down to take a look at you. Might not be so easy to fix if we don't have the components."

Skywarp wrinkled his lip. He remembered Resector well from the Blue debacle; a very pure-sparked, holier-than-thou Autobot surgeon suffering from a _severely_ overinflated opinion of himself. "Well _that_ blousy old glitch isn't coming near me," he asserted. "I'm not having him sabotaging me. Go ask if Sepp'll do it, or something."

"Um, sir?"

"Forceps? She does work here, right? She's a friend, I'm sure she won't mind too muh."

"Uh-… in a manner of speaking, yes. Uh-"

The nurse picked up on the awkwardness and helpfully redirected the conversation. "Your wings are very blistered, over the back," he pointed out, attempting to examine them without touching them too much. "Have you been attacked? Is that why they found you in the recycling division?"

"No-o. Just caught in an explosion at the rift." Skywarp gave him a little glare and shifted his shoulders, uncomfortably. Something was getting… strange, about this whole situation. His insides felt funny, like he was about to need to defend himself against something. "You must have heard it, come on, it's not that far away and it was a pretty massive bang."

The doctor arched a brow and swapped a funny look with the nurse.

"What? Primus, _what_ _is it_ with guys being _cryptic_ today?" Skywarp gave the nurse a half-hearted shove, annoyed. "Just gimme a painkiller, fix me up, and get me out of here. How hard is that gonna be to do?"

"Well, um, I'm not sure how easy it'll be to repair your leg, the damage is fairly extensive. Your wings don't look too good either." Patches tapped her lips, thoughtfully. "How about if we were to maybe just take them off for a little wh-"

"No!" Skywarp sat up straight, alarmed, and the cannula the nurse had just succeeded in getting into the side of his neck jogged straight back out again. Bad memories of poor smashed-up wingless Thundercracker made his own back ache. "No. My wings stay attached."

"They'll be easier to fix, and you'll be a lot more comf-" the medic tried to explain, but her patient interrupted again.

"No, no no, wings stay on-"

"But-"

"Don't make me punch you in the face, Autobot."

Patches hastily backed off, involuntarily covering her nose with her hands. "I-I'll go get the surgeon."

The nagging little concerns they'd left him with meant it was very difficult to actually _enjoy_ the silence when the medics finally left him and his painkillers in peace. All the little "wrongnesses" were adding up in a way Skywarp very much didn't like. He sighed and shifted his shoulders, awkwardly, and boosted the gain on his hearing.

"So… what do you think?" Among the vocalisations he didn't recognise, Skywarp recognised his nurse's tones, and the mech sounded… uneasy. "Is it actually him?"

"Looks like it. Not many are going to match _that_ description-"

"Has anyone notified the Superintendent?"

Patches' nervous, reedy voice spoke up. "I was just about to, now I'm satisfied he's stabilised. I just didn't want to get anyone's hopes up." Beat. "Does anyone know the frequency?"

"I can do that," Whitesides offered, quietly, in the background – Primus, what was _he _doing, still here? Wasn't he grumbling about being late for his shift, earlier? "I have a direct frequency to get through to my inspector, he's the superintendent's attaché for central station. Probably best going through us than letting the entire station know by asking Whisper to relay a message."

Skywarp sighed, and flopped back to the surface of the berth; an abstract sort of pain shivered up off his wings at the impact, but it was a dull hurt, mostly masked by analgesia, and he ignored it. Those few short breems of relaxation he'd been hoping for had promptly evaporated. Last thing he wanted was for Hardline to be giving him a hard time too. _Stupid idiot, wasting police time, why did you even go underground in the first place, you should have known it'd go to Pit, because you're an moron who doesn't know his own limits and you always frag it up._

"What about Footsie? Braze?"

"I'm, uh... I've held off telling her," the paramedic replied, as though it was some terrible giant admission. "I kinda wanted to preserve the peace in here for a while, you know? Just while you guys got him checked over. I mean, in case he, ah, wasn't him."

Footsie? Gotta mean Lou, Skywarp mused. Didn't realise _she_ knew the grinning idiot. Didn't think she had much cause to come here, even. Perhaps she'd been her usual idiot self and broke something (or got something stuck somewhere), and had to sneak in to the Emergency Department to get fixed, without telling anyone.

Skywarp tried to banish his gloomy thoughts, but the idea of parallel universes was swimming around in the front of his cortex. Was that where he was, right now? All that chatter about him not being him, or whatever they'd said. What did that actually _mean _anyway. Who else was he gonna be? Unless there _was_ no Skywarp here. Or he'd been killed in the war. Or, or… _something_.

_Don't be stupid, Skywarp_. He covered his face with one hand. _Why would you have suddenly accidentally teleported into a different universe after all those millions of years of not doing so?_ But then he'd never felt that weird, cold, almost _nothing_ sensation when transitioning between places before, either. He couldn't put a finger on what it felt like, aside from… well… _nothing._

There was a high-pitched _squeal_ of glee and a ripple of alarm from the medical team, but before anyone could move to intercept the approaching little green blur that had rudely crashed through the privacy screen, it had collided with Skywarp hard enough to almost tumble him clean off his berth. He teetered dangerously on the edge for an instant, before his nurse spotted the problem and lunged to catch him.

The 'something' turned out to be a smallish dark green femme with vibrant blue-green optics and broad wings. _Paramedic?_ Skywarp wondered, recognising (when it stopped moving long enough for him to get a good look at it) the same colour scheme as his own rescuer had been wearing. He was pretty sure there were no fliers he didn't know in the district, though, and this little one had a very strange root mode; skinny and lightweight, with an unfamiliar propulsion system – her little feet did have in-built thrusters, sure, but there was no way they'd be strong enough to get her in the air.

No time to think about that now, though. His lap was full of paramedic and he needed to get her _off_ him because she was making his wings hurt-

"Oh Primus it's you it's you it's really you-!" Words bubbled in an uncontrolled flood out of her vocaliser. "I thought you were dead or trapped or something, gone forever and Primus, you're back you're back oh thank Primus-"

The broken jet winced and peeled her off his chassis, holding her at arm's reach. "Do I know you?" Her static field felt very familiar but he couldn't tell _why_.

The excited grin plastered across the pale grey face suddenly became less enthusiastic; a sort of confused smile. "Don't-… don't be silly," she instructed, still trying to hug him.

Skywarp felt his brow furrow, irritably. "Either you explain it, you little psycho, or you get off and go away _now_."

"But… it's me, Day…" Her smile faltered, became uncertain. "It-... it's Footloose."


	4. Chapter 4

**Future Tense - Chapter Four**

**Disclaimer: **As ever, author neither claims nor intentionally implies ownership of the 'Transformers' brand, or any canon character or concept herein, who are copyright 1984-present Hasbro/etc and used with much love and respect to their creators.

* * *

For several full seconds, Skywarp could only sit, open-mouthed and staring at the femme in his lap, replaying the words in his head.

_It's me, Day. It's Footloose. _

It explained the uncomfortable familiarity of her static field, if nothing else. But for it to actually _be _her? That-… it was impossible! A weird coincidence. Footloose was a brat barely five full solar orbits old, too small to fly, whiney and wingless.

"That's nonsense," he asserted, at last. "Even I'm not so stupid that I'll fall for a stupid joke like _that_. Get off my friggin' lap and leave me alone, if you can't be serious."

"But _Day_-"

He squirmed under her weight, trying to get their combined weight off his wings. "Will you stop calling me that? Fragging-… just _get off_!" he growled, with a little push for emphasis. "Or I'll _make you_ get off."

The smile had gone altogether, now; the small flier's lips had pulled together in a little pout of distress. "Yes sir." She obediently slid back to the floor. "I-… Sorry. Okay."

Skywarp directed his glare towards the ceiling, where he guessed a camera could theoretically have been hidden. "Okay guys, joke's over," he said, loudly, scrutinising the corners for hidden lenses. "It wasn't funny in the first place, so you can just… knock it off, already!"

"I promise it's not a joke," the little female spoke up, quietly.

"Quiet." Skywarp waved a threatening arm that he couldn't _quite_ get to stop trembling. "This… this _smeltery_… it's not funny. I'd have thought better of a fraggin' _doctor_. How much are they paying you to play along with this, huh?"

"It's not a joke. They're not paying me." She shifted from one thrusters to the other, uncomfortable, reaching a small green hand out towards him. "Please, Day, you've been gone such a long time, I just wanted to see you-"

"I told you to stop calling me that." He pulled his hands out of reach, glaring hotly enough to melt plate steel. "You guys might think it's hilarious, but I'm not in the mood for any of your stupid smelt. I feel like I've took two turns through the mill, my leg hurts, my wings hurt, my head hurts, and I'm sca- can't think straight. If you can't keep quiet, just… frag off."

"Y-yes, sir. Of course. I-… just… give you some time to yourself." She slipped out through the privacy screen, trying (and mostly failing) to keep the distressed static out of her voice.

Not particularly wanting to listen in, but knowing he ought to if he wanted to get to the bottom of all this, Skywarp boosted the sensitivity on his hearing. _Any moment now_, he told himself. _They'll be all 'aw, darn, he figured it out already, better tell the guys you can't out-prank the master'._ _Any moment now_. _Any moment._

"Heyy, Footsie," he heard the little fat one pipe up, instead. "You all right?"

"I'm going home," the femme asserted, bluntly, her voice shaking. "Not staying where I'm clearly not wanted." Her words fractured. "I just thought he'd be more pleased to see me."

"He probably doesn't mean it – he's just disoriented." Beat. "How about go home for now, spark? We'll tell you if anything changes."

"But-but, what about her shift?" a reedy voice piped up, uneasily. "I-we-we've had on-call medics try to cover but we're not mobile eno-"

"It's all right, Patches, I'll call for cover – Threespots still owes me a favour. Ambulance service will be fine. Footloose?" Sigh. "Go home, spark. I'll keep you appraised of what's going on, all right?..."

Skywarp slumped back and let his auditory sensitivity slip back to normal. _Well, that was successful, huh. You found out _nothing whatsoever_. _He groaned softly to himself and wiped his hand over his face, pinched his nose and concentrated on trying to bleed off a little of the pressure building in his coolant relays, trying to ignore the way his wings had started hurting again.

_Ok so maybe it's not a prank_, he finally allowed himself to believe, unhappily. _So that means... what, precisely? Where am I? _He cast a glance out of the window and shifted his back, uncomfortably. _Need to get out of here. Find the guys, work out what's going on. What do you actually _know_ so far – and like, actually properly _know_, for definite, not what you're just making up to torment yourself with? You freaked out underground after an explosion (which no-one here seems to have heard, what's up with that?), and fragged your teleport in the process, then crashed like a lump of old scrap metal into a heap of garbage. That's all. _

_Aside from that kinda... 'nothing' sensation. What did that mean? _

He pursed his lips and studied the ceiling for a while. It might have meant nothing. _Probably_ meant nothing_._ Just his imagination, he reassured himself. Just... the whole going from somewhere _hot_ to somewhere _cold_ had stressed his systems, made them spasm. _That fitted, didn't it?__ When that medic comes back, I'll ask her._

There _was_ that one other little thing, though. _That dopey sparkling said I was bigger than all the other fliers, didn't it? _The memory made his pumps twitch, uncomfortable. _What does that mean? Does she just not know the guys? Maybe if Whites has never asked Pulse to 'babysit', I guess she's never met them?_

_Or maybe, that means the guys don't exist in this parallel universe. _The thought blindsided him; he briefly offlined his pumps altogether, to quell another flash of unsteady surges.

_…Or, frag. What if I was unconscious for a longer while than I thought, and they were killed in that explosion? They never said anything to me since it all went off, I just assumed they couldn't reach me, through all that rock, but-... maybe they hung around for me, and it killed them. That's why no-one came looking for me. _

_Yeah, Warp, that's pretty likely._ _Common sense, what's that._ _Screamer was the one who told you it was going to blow up, he's hardly gonna just hang around and wait for the blast. So maybe the guys aren't dead. Maybe they just moved away. Couldn't find me, and moved away. But moved where? _He swallowed a snort, folding his arms protectively across his chassis. _It's not_ _like Screamer wouldn't have _already_ moved away the first instant he got if there was anywhere else he could have gone. Vos got pretty much razed all the way to the basement rock within orns of it all starting, there's nothing out there any more._

_So maybe I was laying in that big old heap of recycling for longer than I thought I was. Maybe-... maybe _a lot_ longer. Maybe I passed out – stressed, botched teleport, bonk on the head, that could destabilise a cortex, right? – and since no-one was looking for me to be there, no-one saw me there. It was only when I woke up and set up a beacon they found me. _

_Your clock would have still tracked the passage of time, though, even if you'd been unconscious, and there's no big gaps in your record. That parallel universe is looking more and more likely. _

He laughed, in spite of himself, and rubbed his temples, tiredly. _Primus, Skywarp. Screamer was right with the whole 'junk science' you keep latching onto. _

At last he noticed that the murmur of voices out in the main work area had dipped, as if in anticipation of something. Skywarp redirected his attention at it, wondering if he could glean himself any more useful little snippets of information that'd help him out of this mess-

"Well, Whitesides?"

Skywarp startled and sat bolt upright. That deep voice he'd just picked up at the very limit of his hearing? Was most definitely Thundercracker's. How could that be? The bike's little brat implied they were gone!

"Is it him?" the voice went on, getting louder as it approached.

"I'm fairly confident, sir," the bike confirmed. "Blink picked up on his transmission. Very underpowered, I don't think I'd have caught it."

"Putting those sensory boutons to good use, eh, bitlet?" Chuckle. "All right. I better go see him, work out how much it'll take to get him back on his feet. Oh, and Whites?"

"...sir?"

"Personally, I'm grateful for you staying, but Vector says that is the _only_ reason she'll forgive you being so friggin' late, and only this once. Beemer's still happy to spark-sit Blink, but both are on the condition that you get your aft to the station in the next couple of breems."

"Sir! Right away!" The clatter of flat feet and a sparkling's amused squeaking announced the bike's hasty departure.

The teleport ignored the chatter, focussed on just the one thing. _TC! _He clung to the sound of the hollow _thok_s of an approaching set of thrustered heels. Any second now, his wingmate would appear, all sad-faced, and make him feel bad for freaking out, then Screamer would come along and abuse his audios (and those of everyone else within a half-mile radius) for a breem or two, and he'd just have to sit and endure it until they'd got bored and given up. Then he could get back to the serious business of tracking down gremlins in the Rift-

"Skywarp?"

What appeared through the screen was _not_ Thundercracker – certainly not the person the teleport remembered. Sure, so it was _similar –_ about the same height, and the same muted azure and silver in colour, it wore an elegant pair of wings on its back and had his wingmate's voice. That was as far as the similarity stretched, though; where Thundercracker had a solid, powerful frame, built for the rigours of war and the ability to withstand all but the harshest Autobot attacks, _this_ skinny little abomination-... It looked like it'd snap in half if you blew too hard on it, all spindly limbs and subtle, aerodynamic corners. A narrow but obvious band of white and yellow police chequering bordered his wings.

Skywarp gave a funny, strangled little cry of alarm and promptly scooted himself off the far side of his berth, landing on the floor in a noisy, untidy sprawl of limbs. "...the frag are _you_?" he demanded, peeking up over the memory-foam surface, struggling to keep the tremor out of his voice.

The blue flier had jumped back after Skywarp's outburst, startled. "It-... It's me, Warp," the ghoul reassured, in his wingmate's voice, holding out those little black hands in a placatory gesture. "It's Thundercracker. You remember me, right?"

"Ohh no you don't. You're not TC," Skywarp asserted, keeping the berth between them. At least, he consoled himself, when he'd jumped, so had the stranger, so that proved he was real, and not a, a _ghost_, or something_. _"You're another _imposter_. What the frig are you lot playing at?" He pointed an arm at the screen, using a stabbing gesture to hide his trembling, only just managing to keep himself upright. "First that little brat pretending to be Footloose, and now you? You think I'm stupid, or something? What have you done to TC?"

A flicker of clear disappointment passed through the pale features, but was quickly hidden. "You've been gone a long time, Skywarp. A lot's happened since you blew up. This-..." He placed a hand to his pale chassis. "It's just a refit. That's all." Beat. "How about you just let the docs check your memory, make sure your clock is ok, maybe recalibrate-"

"What, so you can implant some false memories, or something? My memory's fine." The teleport interrupted, sharply, wobbling backwards on his one good leg and bumping unsteadily into the wall, turbines grumbling softly in threat. "My _chrono_ is fine. What do you want from me? What are you trying to trick me into doing?" Something new flashed into his mind. "Information, is that it? You think you can trick me into telling you everything I know, just because you look a bit like my best friend?" He edged along the wall until his wings caught against the corner. "Well you're not gonna trick me into betraying the guys, I swear I will kick that skinny aft into the middle of the next vorn before I give you anything-!"

The imposter put up his hands in surrender. "I don't want any sensitive information from you, Warp, just to know where you've been. You can't have been in that junk heap all this time."

"All _what _time? I've not been _anywhere_. I teleported, I crashed in the junk, and that's it. So you just tell me what in _frag's_ name is going _on_ here?" To his shame, Skywarp found his voice skittering away up the scale, angry and scared. "I swear, if you've done anything to my wingmates-"

"Warp, Warp… All right," the deep-voiced Seeker finally acknowledged, backing up a step. "It's all right, Skywarp, I don't mean you any harm. I didn't mean to scare you. I'm... sorry, that you don't believe me just yet. I know it must be a shock." He sighed hot exhaust. "Let's just… get you repaired first, yeah? After that, we can try and work out how to explain what's happened. All right?"

"Right." Skywarp nodded, just the once, not quite able to shake the suspicious tension from his expression. "If you fix me up, I'll-" ..._leg it as soon as you're finished... _"-listen to what you have to say. But no funny business! I'm not so stupid as people say, I'll _know_ if you're lying-!"

He stayed in his corner, engines growling in threat, until the blue impostor smiled, tersely, and vacated the cubicle. _He didn't even remember activating his cannons, but now he was alone he could feel the spots of heat pooling on his arms, the irritating mosquito song of circuits blazing into defensive life. __See? Scareder than you thought you were__, he recognised, unwillingly, reluctantly winding the circuits back down. _

_Fighting Autobots, you could handle. Pranking Megatron, you could handle. This weird… parallel universe, full of plastic replicas of folk you used to know? No, it's gonna take a lot of brain-work before you can even _start_ to think about handling this one. _

The murmuring continued unabated outside, the unmistakable low drone of a familiar deep voice overlaid on top of the higher chattering of the medics. Skywarp concentrated on the sounds, tuning in on half a conversation. He knew the impostor probably sensed he'd be listening in, but made no effort to hide what he was saying.

"No, he's not convinced. Did you really expect him to-…yeah, I know. ...well, yeah, sure, I think it _is_ him – looks beat all to Pit and is still covered in rock dust. The right bits of his leg are missing, too. I just think-... no. Well, it would help if I could talk to him without him jumping at shadows! Listen, do you still have that holograph lurking anywhere...? I wonder if it might help…"

_Have to get out of here,_ Skywarp resolved, turning back towards the window. Before they had any more chances to think up something else to try fool him with. Had to get out and find somewhere safe to figure out what in frag's name was going on. Who these imposters were, what they wanted from him. What they'd done to his wingmates. _Attack of the bodysnatchers. Obviously too much to hope that getting out of the 'Cons would be the end of it, huh?_

He scrutinised the scenery outside his window; there was a nice flat roof within teleporting distance. That was good enough for now. He could get a view of the land from up there, plan a route and make another couple of hops to somewhere secluded, before they could drag him back, where he could at least try fix his leg for himself. The knee-brace fitted around his wounded knee with a strong, sturdy set of clips, if he could somehow attach something to make it longer, support his bulk? Then maybe he could use it as a kinda makeshift limb.

Any other time, the mental image of "peg-leg Skywarp, dread space pirate" would have made him cackle, but right now he wanted to be out and as far away as his meagre fuel supply would take him. The makeshift leg wouldn't help him _fly_, but at least he'd be mobile, even if the idea of crawling around at ground level made his pumps surge unpleasantly. _Won't be for long_, he reassured himself. _Just until you found the guys. The _real_ guys. Rescued them from whoever kidnapped them, or whatever smeltery is going on. Right?_

He pressed his fingers against the window, and concentrated on the building. It was at least on his maps – same height, location – and he'd already triangulated his jump when the doubts crept back. What if he botched this one, too? What if the explosion had caused a serious problem with his gate, destabilised it? If he teleported this time, he might not just end up in another dimension, he might lose whole chunks of his superstructure if his primary field didn't move all the air out of the way. Or worse, his pattern buffers might fail and he'd lose cohesion altogether, end up nothing more than a mist of disconnected molecules, raining down unseen across the entire district.

He leaned his head against the window, and concentrated on drawing cold air through his vents. _Everything feels normal, Warp, calm down already_, he told himself. _It was over-reacting that got you in this stupid mess in the first place. All your parameters are reporting back normal. Your gate diagnostics are all green. Quantum signals are strong, pattern buffer is fine. There's nothing wrong with your teleport, it must have been some outside influence that caused it. You can find out what went wrong _later. _Just get out of here, before they start digging all your secrets out of you._

The transition between the close, stuffy hospital room and the clear, cool atmosphere at the top of the tower block felt gratifyingly normal, when he finally plucked up the courage to use his teleport. _See, Warp? You're fine. Everything went fine. No missing structural components. No instability. No problems. Okay?_

He managed another two short hops – aiming for the small rubbish dump he remembered tripping over once, hoping to scrounge up a few building materials and maybe a little fuel, but finding it wasn't even there any more – before he got too low on fuel to teleport any more, and gave up running. _Admit it, Warp. You're not gonna find the guys on your own, and it's not like you can go beg help off the Empties. _

He huddled down on the securest ledge he could find, looking more like a small bedraggled city pigeon than the proud eagle he once had been. Where _was_ this place, anyway? He didn't _like_ to admit it – didn't _want_ to admit it! – but the place frightened him. Looked (superficially, at least) like Deixar, but it didn't _feel _like it. He hunched his shoulders and mantled his sorry, blistered wings very slightly forwards around himself, wrapping his arms around his chassis, protectively. If someone was trying to "con the 'Con", they were sure putting in fragloads of effort, building all this just to trick him. Maybe it was all holograms? Surely he wasn't that important. Not like he had lots of sensitive data. Maybe they just thought he was stupid enough to fall for it? After all, Screamer was a better source of information but he'd see through all this _immediately_.

What was perhaps worst of all, though, was the fact that-... he hated to even think about it, but he felt _lost_. There were familiar landmarks, sure, and it was all superficially the same, but… his maps didn't quite match up. Buildings were in the same places, but looked different. Some buildings had gone, some had been replaced. There were big open spots, too, where he remembered ramshackle old offices, derelict factories. Up between the unfamiliar buildings there even poked little bits of green stuff – surely not _trees_?

For a mech that relied so heavily on knowing exactly where he was, to suddenly find himself in semi-familiar surroundings that didn't match what he thought he knew? It felt like someone had clawed around in his chassis, and dug out half his senses, leaving him running around in circles, half-blind. It was like that first time he'd woken up on Earth, and had to scramble to form the bones of a map in the orns before the Autobots got up and started shooting at them.

A chit of data pinged off his firewalls, and at last Skywarp dragged himself far enough out of the murk to notice a familiar airborne shape had come closer – and it was actually _familiar, _properly so. Right shape, right colours, and reassuringly solid and blocky in all the right places.

"Thundercracker-! Primus-" Skywarp's vocaliser hitched, sharp with static, and he lurched unsteadily to a standing position, arms out and clutching for his wingmate. "Where the frag _were_ you?"

"Trying to find _you_, mostly," Thundercracker teased, gently. "Why'd you have to go run off like that, huh?" He settled carefully on the roof alongside his wingmate; it felt like it'd bear up under their combined weight, but there was no point in taking chances by being rough. Skywarp clutched at him, unsteadily; the blue Seeker managed to catch him just before he went over, lowered them both carefully to their knees.

Skywarp just clung to him for several long, relieved seconds. The static envelope that harmonised with his was familiar, and reassuring. The real proper genuine article. His for-serious real wingmate, un-blown-up.

"There's some guys pretending to be you," the dark Seeker explained, at last, deadly serious, finally looking his friend in the optics; Thundercracker could probably feel him still trembling, but he didn't care any more. It wasn't as if the blue jet wasn't trembling a little himself. "I wasn't fooled, though. Stupid, skinny-looking protoform, I don't how they thought it'd fool me. They were after something from me, but I didn't stick around long enough to find out."

"In the hospital?"

"Uh-huh." Skywarp could feel his systems starting to slow again, battle protocols standing down. "I think they might have been they trying to trick me into giving them our secrets, but I saw through it, I'm not so _stupid_ as they think I am." He drew a stabilising pulse of cold air into his core. "What's going on, TC? Where am I, why does everything look so strange?"

"Listen. It's going to be difficult for me to explain." Thundercracker gently lowered him down to his aft, so he couldn't fall off the roof altogether. "And you know I don't explain the scientific things quite so well as our glorious wingleader. Just promise to hear me out before you skedaddle again. Right?"

Skywarp felt a tingle of concern prickle up the back of his wings. "Wh-what?"

The blue jet took a moment to compose himself. "You've been gone for a long time, Warp. You vanished after that explosion. We spent forever looking for you, and-"

"It-it's you, isn't it?" Skywarp interrupted, shying away, scooting towards the edge. A sensation of dismaying freefall gripped him. "From the hospital. The impostor- I'm not telling you anything! Whatever it is you think I know, I'm not giving you it-!"

"Skywarp. Please." The blue Thundercracker impostor whoever-he-was somehow kept the friendly, reassuring expression fixed on his pale face. "You were close enough to pick up my static field, a second ago. Don't you recognise me? I promise, it's the real Thundercracker."

The teleport had backed up as far as he could get, and now clung precariously to the edge. "You're not TC," he asserted, shakily, but a flicker of doubt passed through his expression. "You _can't _be. You're all… stick-legged and strange-looking. TC looks like _me_. You're trying to trick me."

"I'm not trying to trick you. I'm trying to explain something to you that I don't really understand myself, so I know it's going to be an even more difficult concept for you to wrap your processors around… Look. Here." The blue jet plucked a news-wafer out of his subspace, held it out and wiggled it gently; Skywarp hesitantly accepted it, as though it might bite. "I picked this up from the _Sphere_'s main office on my way past, just after we got the report you'd been found. It's dated today."

Skywarp stared blankly at the page for so long, Thundercracker began to wonder if he hadn't broken his brain altogether.

"This isn't today's news-sheet," the teleport asserted, at last, leaning forwards and sternly placing it back into Thundercracker's hands. "You made it up. Forged it. It can't be too difficult to write a fake news-sheet, you just need a word-processor and a good imagination. Especially if you want to trick the idiot into believing you."

"I promise it's today's news. See?" A slim black finger touched delicately against the image at the right of the front page. "There's you, making a spectacular fall from the sky. I'm amazed someone caught it."

"No it isn't. I-I mean... all right, sure, maybe that's me, but... that-… that's not real. That's not today's date. You made it up." His voice fractured. "It's a, a… counterfeit or something. It's not today's news."

"Please, Warp." Thundercracker put the wafer down on the roof, keeping his voice as low and soothing as he could manage. "I know it's difficult to take in. Frag, it's hard enough for _us_ to understand, I can't even begin to imagine what it must be like for you-… Look. The police central computer is on the same frequency as it was before your accident, it'll confirm the date and time for you, if you need it."

"But _it can't be_ today's news," Skywarp pleaded, pathetically, sagging shakily back to his aft. "It just-… friggin'… can't be. What you're saying, it's… it's not even _possible_, Screamer's always saying it's junk science, it's impossible-!"

Thundercracker settled next to him, and let him slump into him.

"If this is today's news," Skywarp croaked, his voice finally stunned into a dead flatness, "then where the slag have I _been_ for the last thirty-seven vorns?"


	5. Chapter 5

**Future Tense - Chapter Five**

**Disclaimer: **As ever, author neither claims nor intentionally implies ownership of the 'Transformers' brand, or any canon character or concept herein, who are copyright 1984-present Hasbro/etc and used with much love and respect to their creators.

* * *

"This has gotta be a trick," Skywarp groaned, softly, leaning his head into his hands. "There's no fraggin' _way_ I can have been gone that long and not known about it." He cast a pleading glance at Thundercracker. "Please tell me it's a trick. You've made your point, I don't know where I am or what's going on and I'm in no position to fight you or-or... look, I'll even go peacefully, if you just tell me this is all some big scheme to get me to do what you want."

"And I really wish I could, no word of a lie." Thundercracker vented exhaust in a long sigh. "If only to help my own peace of mind! I just-... I'm sorry, Warp. I wish I _could_ explain it. All I know is that you've been gone a long time." He vented a long, slow pulse of stale air. "A very, _very_ fragging long time. Seeing you here today, it's like… seeing a ghost."

"But it-… I've been missing for the same time it took Cybertron to go round the star _three thousand times_. How's that even _possible_?" Skywarp despaired. His wings were steadily sagging lower and lower. "Are you _sure_ I wasn't in that dump the whole time? Really like 100% absolutely definitely sure? I mean, what if I'd been laid up somewhere, in stasis? And you just, just-… maybe my antenna wasn't working, so you couldn't find me?"

"I'm sorry, Warp. We looked everywhere for you. Literally, everywhere," Thundercracker explained, quietly. "Spent every spare waking moment for the first couple of vorns just searching. Must have roped in the entire station to help out for a good chunk of that time. We went through every single residential block, every last rubbish tip and derelict building on the entire planet at least twice, and scanned through every cubic metre of rock you could have possibly reached with your gate. If you'd been out there somewhere? We'd have found you."

Skywarp felt his fingers trembling, and closed them into fists in his lap in an attempt to control them. "My clock would have kept ticking even if I'd been unconscious, too, right? Not… turned out forty vorns wrong. Primus." He drew in a long pulse of cold air. "I can't have fragged things up this bad just from being un-… just from one tiny freakout. Every day of my fragging life, as a Con, I used my teleport and it was fine. We're just starting to get our lives back on the rails, and make a go of things without getting the everloving slag shot out of us? And I manage the biggest screw-up of my life." He covered his face with both hands. "I teleported _through time_, TC." His groan emerged muffled by his fingers. "That's what you're saying, isn't it? How is that even possible?"

"You're asking the wrong mech." Thundercracker kept up the gentle, soothing pets on his wings, reassured by the way Skywarp was heeling gently to the left and into his hands. "But Starscream may know. We'll ask him, when we get back."

"…yeah. I might need you to translate for me."

"That's assuming _I'll_ know what he's going on about!" Thundercracker chuckled, and lowered his voice to add; "If he doesn't use short words, we can assume that means he doesn't _really_ understand it either."

Skywarp snorted his amusement, remaining mostly silent for while longer, appreciative of the gentle touches but clearly deep in thought. When he spoke up again, his voice was small. "Look, I'd been thinking. What if this is a parallel universe? You don't think I've maybe just... swapped places with _your_ Skywarp, or something?"

Thundercracker gave him a funny look, trying to gauge whether his friend was joking. "_Our _Skywarp…?"

"Well I mean, I can't _travel through_ _time_, TC, come on. Just the idea is like I'm living in some stupid Squishy sci-fi. And look at you, all curvy and plastic-looking." Skywarp gestured. "There's no way the Thundercracker _I_ know would have volunteered for such a, a… feeble-looking refit, so I must have teleported into the wrong universe, somehow, where you guys didn't spend half your lives getting _shot at_. So, maybe I swapped places with the other Skywarp that lives here, and since everything started forty vorns earlier, that's why my clock's wrong." He gave Thundercracker an optimistic look. "Right?"

"Well, I guess it's not completely outside the realm of the possible." The blue jet couldn't help a little smile, in spite of the insults. "But I think you _are_ our Skywarp, Warp. Only you could possibly come up with the idea that time travel is impossible, but teleporting into a parallel universe is just fine."

Skywarp shot him a pursed-lips resentful half-glare. "What makes you think that _your_ Skywarp wouldn't have the same idea? Him and me might be really similar. You're implying he's not exactly _brainy_." Another thought hit him. "You're gonna send me back, right?"

"What-?"

Skywarp matched stares with his wingmate's tired crimson. "_Right_?" he chased. "You're gonna make sure I go back to where I came from, and don't skip over everything important that's happened?"

Thankfully, the pale features curved into a small smile. "Sure," Thundercracker agreed, gently. "Soon as we can figure out how you got here in the first place. Did you feel anything unusual when you teleported?"

"I-… well-… no." Skywarp pursed his lips. "I mean, my diagnostics didn't pick it up so I figured it didn't mean anything. _It was _probably nothing…" He frowned and tried to recapture the sensation he'd thus far tried to forget had happened. "There was-… sort of a… _cold_ feeling, I guess?"

"Cold?" Thundercracker nudged him to elaborate.

"Well, like…" Skywarp frowned, seriously, and after several seconds of intense thought finally came up with; "like everything had just _stopped_ for an astro-second or two. But it-it must have been nothing. My diagnostics didn't record that anything even happened." He gave his friend a glance. "What do you think that means? How… how did _that_ put me _here_?"

"I don't know." Thundercracker shook his head, disappointed. "Starscream might have a better idea. Soon as we get you back to hospital, we can ask him."

Skywarp hunched his shoulders a little, and gave him a sidelong look, lips pursed. "Great. Like _he_ needs any excuse to yell at me."

Thundercracker managed a faint, knowing smile. "You only want to know if you need to pre-emptively prank him."

Skywarp snorted. "Yeah, TC; I'll play zombie and throw body parts at him until I fall over again." His smile withered. "He's gonna really chew on my audios this time, huh. Not many mechs are skilled enough to break time itself."

"Aw, Warp. Don't be a glitch." Thundercracker slung an arm across his friend's shoulders, gave him a squeeze; Skywarp leaned in, still trembling ever so slightly. "He moped for ages because your last conversation was an argument. _And_ moped because we couldn't find you. And moped because he missed you. You know he keeps his spark on a tight leash, and yells because it's pretty much the only emotion he knows how to express."

Skywarp at least managed a staticky little snort of laughter.

"It'll be fine. I'll wallop him for you, if you can't reach." The blue Seeker put up a hand to his upper arm and gave an invisible _something_ a squeeze – his outline _flickered_, very briefly, and the excess mass, the familiar boxy design, faded out.

Skywarp gave him a distressed pout, eyeing the holoemitter strapped around the blue jet's upper arm. "Can't you put that thing back on?"

"The holograph?" Thundercracker arched a brow. "Why? You still not completely sure I'm me?"

Skywarp gave him a brief visual once-over. "No, because you look _wrong_." He gave him a tentative little poke in the arm. "Like a big plastic toy, or something."

"Well, you're going to have to get used to it sooner or later," Thundercracker soothed. "Might as well get it out of the way now."

Skywarp grunted unhappily, and folded his arms around himself, again. "How did _you _get used to it?" He studied his scuffed foot, distractedly, waved it aimlessly in the void. "Weren't you worried that someone would come along and swat you out of the sky?"

"Yeah, it did take a while. The first version was a little… flimsy," Thundercracker accepted. "And Screamer did get 'swatted' a few times before he managed to design the strength back in. We've been running with this design for a good eleven vorns now, though, it's light, strong, fuel efficient-"

"Wait, are you saying _Starscream_ built them?" Skywarp gave him another look, and couldn't quite hide the doubt in his gaze. "Screamer, who has a knack for getting himself as smashed up as possible? What is he, suicidal? You're not even _armed_."

"Ah-ah." Thundercracker tapped the little hatches on his upper arm. "They're inside. Not so easy removed by fleshlings with an angle-grinder and a grudge."

Skywarp winced. "That's not even funny." Last he remembered, Thundercracker was barely able to even think about Egypt without going into full shaking retreat, let alone _joke_ about it. He cast a critical glance over his wingmate's lean frame. "It looks ridiculous. Like you're made out of _polystyrene. _Primus. Even that useless teeny yellow Autobot could poke holes in you." The teleport gave his wingmate a hesitant, very underpowered shove on the arm, then folded his arms, protectively. "You're not getting _me _wearing it. You can just fix my leg." He waved his stump, meaningfully. "Then I can keep you bunch of skinny little gliders safe if anything actually dangerous comes along."

Thundercracker smiled, sadly. "It's been well tested on the battlefield. This 'silly skinny new refit' helped win the war for us."

Caught off guard, Skywarp could only stare, for a moment or two. "War's over," he echoed, quietly. "You mean, properly over?"

Thundercracker picked up the subtle undercurrent of _something else I missed_ in his friend's words. "Pretty much," he apologised. "Things still rumble on in the background, a little bit. Little skirmishes here and there, that sort of thing, but… it's been… quiet, the last dozen or so vorns, since we took ownership of the space bridge. Megatron's stuck on the wrong side of it-"

"Hey, whoa. Stop, stop! You better stop talking, TC, I can't go back knowing all this!" Skywarp waved his hands. "Bad enough I've seen you lot looking all skinny and weird, if you tell me anything else I _can't_ go back, I'll break history."

"Technically you've _already_ broken history," Thundercracker reminded him. "But that's not such a big deal, right now, because when you go back, the future won't happen this way, any more. Because we won't have had to live without you for all those vorns. Right?"

Skywarp allowed his hands to drop back into his lap. "I still don't think you should tell me much. Just in case." He studied a dull scuffmark on his thumb, where Footloose – little Footloose, _real_ Footloose, not strange green impostor 'Footloose' – had crashed into him in the cavern, just before the aliens had attacked him. "Did you find those fuzzy things?" He glanced up. "What are they?"

Thundercracker shook his head. "We didn't and we haven't." Sensing the disappointment that rolled off his wingmate in great heavy waves, he hastily added, before the dark Seeker could protest; "we were sort of preoccupied by _you_ vanishing, if you remember? Then the Triplechangers came along to cause trouble and… well, chasing your gremlins down in the Rift just got lower and lower on our list of priorities."

Skywarp winced, in sympathy. That couldn't have been a good thing. "Triplechangers? What did _they_ want?"

Thundercracker gave him a tired smile. "Mostly? A fight, we figured." He shrugged, one-shouldered. "We're not sure if they were following orders, or just trying to improve their standing with Megatron by being self-directed. Either seemed pretty likely, given what else was going on."

"…uhh… what else _was_ going on?"

"You don't want to know, remember?"

Skywarp pouted, and gave his friend a little resentful glare. "Ha ha."

Thundercracker gave him a playful shove. "We were already tight for fuel before you disappeared, remember? Which is why Screamer was near-on having a breakdown, trying to pay those overinflated prices our suppliers demanded to keep us all in the air-"

"Prices that Shockwave initiated, the mean one-eyed old slagger."

"Exactly. Well, Megs finally told Shockwave to embargo _all_ the supplies they were sending through. He cut off everything, even those few little dribs and drabs at his usual extortionate prices. I think the hopes were that we'd get so starving and desperate, we'd go crawling back to his mercy, you know? We're sorry, we'll do whatever you say, you win, just please feed us?" Thundercracker shrugged, amiably. "All it actually did was made his loyalists rebel. The fleet didn't take too well to being grounded."

Skywarp wrinkled his nose, unimpressed. "How can a mech riot if he's too tired to do _anything_?"

Thundercracker smiled, and these was a flicker of that familiar old Decepticon guile in his expression. "Our eminent wingleader saw an opening, and chased it for all it was worth – approached all the grounded Seekers with an offer. If they fell in with us, promised their loyalty to us instead of Megatron? We'd get them refit and back in the air. We knew what they needed, what was important, 'takes a Seeker to know a Seeker', and all that."

"I'm sure they were all _overjoyed_ when they ended up looking like plastic toys. And they actually went along with it? Didn't go straight back to Megs once Screamer had sorted Shocky out?"

"Hey, come on, _some_ of us have a sense of loyalty." Thundercracker gave him another affectionate little shove. "It's hard to be exclusively loyal to a leader who'd been absent for thousands of vorns, and more interested in hounding the leader of the enemy faction than rebuilding what was left of the world." His lips quirked into a lazy half-smile. "Acid Storm's out co-ordinating the rebuild at Vos."

"They're rebuilding?"

"Ehh, after a fashion. It's mostly ground clearance, at the moment." Thundercracker gave his wingmate a sad glance. "Still good and flat over there, you know? Be a prime building spot, once the ordnance has all finally been removed. _We_ might even move back, some day – if they'll still have us." He offered his hand. "Come on. At least lemme get you back to hospital and cleaned up, yeah? We can talk all you like, once you're feeling better."

Skywarp studied the proffered hand, with its unfamiliar little fingers. "…all right," he agreed, hollowly. "I guess it'll be easier to bully Screamer into sending me back if I can stand under my own power again. You're gonna have to get me some fuel, though. I'm too depleted to teleport any more."

"What do I look like, a courier?" Thundercracker curled his lip, gently teasing. "I'm not flying back and forth all orn. I'll carry you."

"_You'll_ _what_? You, and that… that… _polystyrene refit_?" Skywarp involuntarily leaned backwards, away from him, brows arching, alarmed. "Like frag I'm gonna let you carry me! I'm _lost_, not suicidal."

The blue jet made a gently chastising _come-hither_ gesture with both hands. "Just trust me, all right?"

_Trust me. _Skywarp stared down at the dark palms for several long seconds, the words just hanging between them. _When has TC ever let you down, huh?_ Hesitantly, he slotted his own (strangely oversized) hands into his wingmate's. "If you crash us, I'm gonna kill you," he promised, quietly, allowing his friend to help him to his one unsteady good leg.

"Well, if we do, I promise to stand still so you can get a good shot." Thundercracker made sure he had a good grip before engaging his primary drive. "All right? Secure?" he coaxed, poised to launch, the chilly backwash from his wings sending scraps of old detritus fluttering away.

_We're SO gonna crash_. Skywarp winced. "No."

The blue Seeker gave him a reassuring smile. "Just hold on tight, eh?"

In spite of the ease with which Thundercracker lifted off, the unnatural quiet of his engines left Skywarp feeling unnerved – as though his engines were running down and they may just... fall out of the sky, at any second. His fingers tightened their grip, involuntarily.

They arrived back to find a scarlet waiting party standing watching them from the street outside the hospital, a glare pinching its dark features, arms firmly folded, foot impatiently tapping.

"Well you two certainly took your time," a familiar glass-etching voice cut across the air between them, very distinct and classically screechy, even over the increasing pitch of Thundercracker's engines as he pulled them up for a landing. "What took you so long?"

"We were talking, for a while. It's still allowed, isn't it?"

"Well thank you _so much_ for keeping me in the loop and letting me know you were sat out there timewasting." Starscream stabbed an arm in the direction they'd just come from. "I mean, it's not as though I was wondering if I should send for a _search party_, or anything."

Thundercracker just smiled, amiably, and helped Skywarp hobble past him. Somewhat deflated by the lack of response, Starscream muttered something huffy under his breath, and followed his wingmate.

"All right, Warp. Comfortable?" Thundercracker asked, once Skywarp was finally settled back in his (horrible, small) private cubicle.

Skywarp shrugged and pulled a semi-resentful face. "I guess." He waved his foot, aimlessly. "Not like I've got much choice in the matter, huh."

Thundercracker hesitated in the doorway. "We'll get to the bottom of it," he promised.

"And send me back home," the teleport reminded, waving a finger at his wingmate's departing back. "And get me a drink?"

"Is he going to stay put, this time?" Starscream wondered, out in the main area, in an intentionally-loud voice. "Because he can find his own way back next time."

Skywarp sneered at the wall, and demonstrated his knowledge of Earthly hand gestures to whoever cared to be looking.

The voices outside his cubicle carried on at a more hushed level. Whether they didn't realise he could hear them, or just didn't care – or frag, maybe they _wanted_ him to hear – Skywarp couldn't tell. He listened in, anyway, feeling... small. Jittery, inside. He willed his pumps to shut off, but it didn't help as much as he'd hoped.

"So what's your opinion? Is it him?"

"What are you asking _me for_? You're the one who's been sat poring over the scans the hospital managed to take before he made a run for it. What do _you_ think?"

"…_you're_ the one who just spent the last ten breems sitting on a roof and talking to him. Scans were about as inconclusive as last time. All I want is an opinion, Thundercracker, if you don't want to put your money where your mouth is, just tell me so."

"All right. Honestly? I think it _is_ him, this time."

Starscream huffed quietly. "And your reasoning?"

"Nice to see your usual faith in my ability to recognise our trine-mate, there. I just think it is! There's just too much that _fits_ for it to be anything else. All the _little_ things match up, for a change."

"They have had plenty of _practice_, Thundercracker. What is this, number three, now?"

"See, that's just it. I don't care how much practice they've had, he's too... too _him_... you know? If he's a facsimile, then he's a _brilliant_ facsimile-"

Skywarp froze. _Facsimile? _

"-absolutely perfect, right down to the little idiosyncrasies in his speech, and his special personal brand of _handwavium_. This isn't some… repainted, relabelled puppet built of spare parts. Which you'd realise, if you went to talk to him. What are you so scared of? "

Starscream lowered his voice, to a soft growl of mixed threat and concern. "I'm not _scared. _I'm just not getting attached again. Not until we've got good, concrete proof. Last time, it nearly destroyed us, finding out that… _thing_ wasn't who it said it was." He actually sounded genuinely wounded. "I'm not going through all that again. I don't-… I don't think either of us would… cope."

"And what about him? Suddenly slapped down here, thirty vorns into the future, completely lost, needing our comfort and friendship?"

"You haven't precisely been a beacon of glee at seeing him. You're as scared as me, and just as reluctant to get close to him. Keep him at arm's length, in case he turns out to be just another replica."

A frosty silence took hold for a good few seconds.

At last, Starscream spoke again. "I have to go talk to a surgeon." The hollow _thoks_ of his thrusters on the hard ground marked his departure.

Skywarp rebooted his pumps in an effort to shed the tense, tight sensation in his chassis. Was this what the squishies meant by 'having a lump in the throat'?

Well, it sure explained Thundercracker's reserved response, didn't it? Don't see your bro for almost forty vorns? No big deal. They didn't think he was actually _him_. That _he_ was the impostor, not all these weird skinny 'refits'. He still wasn't even completely sure that he wasn't in a parallel universe. Or that someone had gone to huge amounts of trouble forging a replica of the whole of central Deixar, to trick him into giving up information.

A long-suffering sigh showed that Thundercracker hadn't accompanied his wingmate. Skywarp hastily directed his attention out of the window, hoping it made it look like he'd not been eavesdropping – and just in time, when the blue jet poked his head through the screen.

"Don't know what you heard, there, but, eh. Sorry about that," Thundercracker apologised, awkwardly. "Just... Screamer being Screamer. You know."

"Pfft, I know better than to listen in when _he's_ in a bad mood." The teleport poked out his tongue, making an effort to look his usual irreverent self. "I actually value my auditory sensitivity."

If Thundercracker suspected him of lying, he didn't admit to it. Just... smiled, in a funny, vague sort of way. "Listen, I've got a couple of things I need to attend to," he excused himself. "How about you get some rest, huh? You need to relax, get your head in order, before we start thinking about getting you fixed. I'll get some energon sent down. Sound good?"

"Yeah," Skywarp studied the floor, quietly.

"...it'll be all right, Warp."

"…how _can_ it be, TC? When I've managed to bypass what should have been the most important chunk of my life so far?"

Thundercracker forced a smile. "It'll be all right, because we'll fix it, somehow. We'll send you home, so you don't."


	6. Chapter 6

**Future Tense - Chapter Six**

**Disclaimer: **As ever, author neither claims nor intentionally implies ownership of the 'Transformers' brand, or any canon character or concept herein, who are copyright 1984-present Hasbro/etc and used with much love and respect to their creators.

* * *

This was the _real_ reason he toed the line with Megatron, back in the day, Skywarp mused, for the umpteenth time, conducting an in-depth study of the floor tiles, just for something to do. Because hospitals? _Really_ sucked. He had no idea how Screamer had managed to spend even _half_ the time in those various infirmaries without going completely psychotic, after getting himself slagged a million and one times. (Frag, maybe it _did _explain all the wing commander's neuroses.)

"Skywarp?"

A hesitant voice prodded him out of his gloom, and Skywarp glanced around to watch a familiar little blue and white figure slip through the privacy screen, with a tall flask of faintly-glowing purple fluid clutched firmly in her small hands. "Hey, Pulse," he greeted, gloomily.

She looked a little different to how he remembered – not quite _so_ pointy-headed, and hey, someone had convinced her to get her arm reattached, at last – but she was still wearing one of those silly gauzy little scarves, looped lightly around her thin neck. He snorted to himself; all those countless solar rotations later, and she was _still_ wearing the stupid things.

"I heard from TC that you'd been found," she volunteered, to break the silence, fidgeting with the flask.

"And you wanted to check it out for yourself, huh?" He wrinkled his lip, unenthusiastically. "See if _you_ believe I'm who I say I am, too." He managed a sort of sneery half-smile for her, before letting his gaze drop back to his lap. "You'd think that after a guy's been gone for nearly forty vorns, his best friends would be more pleased to see him," he joked, grimly.

This small, sad, unfamiliar Skywarp worried her. "I doubt they m_ean_ to hurt your feelings. They're just… cautious." she apologised, quietly. She closed the gap between them, set the flask down on the instrument trolley, and tucked herself against him, trying to avoid the worst areas of damage.

He sighed warm exhaust, and folded his arms around her, resting his chin on top of her head. "Cautious," he echoed, and snorted, quietly. "In case I'm not who I say I am, you mean."

She remained quiet, for a moment. "…you heard about that?"

"Course I heard about it. Just figure I wasn't _meant _to. Screamer and his theatrical whispers outside my friggin' doorway." He curled his lip in a tired sneer. "He keeps forgetting _stupid_ doesn't mean _deaf_."

Pulsar let her cheek rest against his chassis, briefly, listened to his internals clicking. "They're just scared-"

"Big deal. You think I'm not? With this whole… welcome to the future, attack of the clones load of slag?"

"No, I mean… not scared _of_ you. Scared of what it means if you're _not_ you, again." She drew back, so she could meet his gaze. "They took it really hard, Warp. Bad enough to have lost you, but to think they'd found you again, only for you-… for _it_… to be… something else?" The cycle weighed her choice of words for a moment or two. "This is the third time you've come back, and we weren't sure they were going to get over it the second time."

_Keep him at arm's length, in case he turns out to be just another replica._ The memory of Starscream's words left him feeling hollow. _I don't know that I _haven't_ been… fiddled with._

"I probably didn't ought to tell you much." Pulsar shifted on the spot, glanced back at the doorway. "It'll tip them off, if they know we know there's a chance you're not you, again. Does that make sense?"

"Not really." Skywarp pouted and shook his head.

"I meant-… If you _were_ another replica, we should pretend we don't suspect you, even if we do. Did? Even though you know, now, which means so do they?" She grimaced. "I'm confusing _myself_. A lot's happened. I don't even know where to start."

"Well, I guess Lou's forgiven me for jumping ship on her, seeing as she's already come to maul me." ..._must go apologise to the wee brat as soon as they let me out._

"You're the reason she decided to be a paramedic, you know." Pulsar managed a thin smile. "Because she wasn't able to help you, and didn't want to be put in that position any more."

Guilt weighed on his wings like something physical; _you put the pair of you into that situation, you giant moron._ A noisy little brat with a predisposition to tantrums Footloose may be, but she had a good spark, and it didn't take the greatest brain on Cybertron to imaging she'd probably taken losing her sire pretty hard. "She got out okay, then?"

The policebike nodded. "It took her a couple of orns to find her way up to the surface, but she was just a bit dirty when she got out. Said you told her not to teleport. We dug down to where her triangulations said you were pretty much as soon as she appeared. You can still see the borehole. No-one's had the heart to fill it in, yet." She forced a smile. "Took about five orns to dig down through the bedrock, altogether. Found all kinds of little caverns and antiques on the way."

Skywarp snorted. "Bet that pleased Screamer. Didn't waste all that time on a loser like me with nothing to show for it, after all."

Pulsar gave him a little reproachful look. "He was just as worried as TC. He was the one that insisted we got to work digging down to you as soon as Lou appeared, co-ordinated everything..." She quirked one side of her mouth into a half-smile. "We have photographic evidence of him wielding a shovel, if you wanted to see it."

Skywarp snorted an involuntary laugh. "He actually got his hands dirty? Didn't just stand on the edge and yell instructions at everyone?"

"Well, he knows you don't do so good with small spaces." Pulsar covered his hand with hers. "He wanted to get you out before you burned out too many of your fuses. Never imagined you'd have already vanished." She studied the scratches and rock fragments still trapped in the enamel of his dirty fingers, and recalled that no-one had been _that_ surprised to find the remains of a leg and nothing more. Skywarp's claustrophobia was not a particularly well guarded secret, any more. "Everyone figured you'd got _out_ all right when you weren't there, but then we couldn't actually _find_ you."

"Yeah." Skywarp studied the clashing colours of their fingers, to avoid meeting her gaze, and watched as she picked a long crystal of dried energon from one of the softer joint spaces. "Shoulda known I'd freak out, down there." He sighed, and offered an ironic smile. "So much for just getting a look."

"It's not your fault. Accidents happen. You didn't know it was going to blow up."

"I didn't _have_ to go underground, either. Screamer tried to warn me it'd go to the smelter, and I just… figured I knew best."

Annoyingly, he was probably right. She squeezed his fingers, hoping to be reassuring. "It doesn't matter whose fault it was. No-one's holding it against you. We all pitched in with looking for you. For _Vorns_, everyone was still hopeful they'd find you – find _something_… Seem and Lucy very nearly took up residence at the geology monitoring station by the rift."

"Screamer didn't immediately evict them?"

They shared a sad smile and strained chuckle; as infants, both twins had turned it into a game, seeing how long they could spend in his laboratory before Starscream invariably finally spotted their hiding place and booted them out. It exasperated the red Seeker, but it was only when they started helping themselves to his experiments that he put a subspace lock on the room.

"A hemisphere with a radius of two miles is an awful lot of rock to scan through. He needed the help," Pulsar reminded, quietly. "After we'd not been able to find you _above _ground, it seemed like the only other possible alternative was that you'd entangled yourself with the rocks, somewhere. It took the best part of half a vorn just to do the first sweep."

"If I'd done that, I'd have been dead, Pulse," Skywarp reminded, quietly, unable to completely swallow the way his pumps fluttered nauseatingly at the idea.

"I know. We needed… closure." She forced a sad little smile. "Even if it was just digging out a body. So we could grieve properly, and try to move on." She shuffled her feet, dropped her gaze to examine the floor. "The _not knowing_ was the worst. When were we supposed to decide to stop looking? That 'one more orn' might have been what made all the difference. If we'd kept looking for one more orn, we may have found you."

"So where do these... _clones_ come in?"

"I'm just getting to that," she soothed. "It was a few orbits shy of a vorn after this all started. We were just gearing up to start a second geological sweep – in case we'd missed anything – when a little group of Empties came across from Rustig, on the other side of the rift." She gave him a knowing, slightly chastising look. "They said they'd have come quicker, but someone made the nearest bridge unsafe."

Skywarp muttered something defensively apologetic, knowing she meant the bridge he had destroyed to stop fleeing Codustral loyalists escaping from the district.

"They brought a Seeker with them. Your colours in all the right places, scorched wings, damaged leg, barely mobile without help, the works. He was delirious, rambling about 'creatures' – not that he was easy to understand, with a scorched vocaliser. It took… maybe fifteen, twenty orns – most of it spent in hospital, with nurses in the way of getting to talk to him – to work out it wasn't actually _you_."

Skywarp watched a transient flash of hurt pass through her muted optics, and rotated his hand slightly so he could close his fingers on hers.

The little touch bolstered her mood a fraction. "It was just... some poor broken Seeker someone had dug up out the ruins of Vos," she went on. "Repainted, fed up just enough to keep out of stasis, and let loose among the Empties, because they knew word would eventually get back to us. Starscream reckons it was done with the hope we'd be fooled into thinking you'd been there the whole time, be more inclined to trust that it was you."

"How did you figure out it wasn't me?"

"It wasn't that _good_ a copy." She smiled, painfully, and laughed. "I mean, once they'd fixed 'his' vocaliser? It turned out he was actually a femme, called Upswing. We think someone had tried to patch over her ident with something like yours, so we'd be fooled into thinking she was you, but they didn't really know enough about how we work for it to take. All the patch did was muddle up what came up on her autonomic identifier."

An involuntary shudder made Skywarp's wings tremble. Not only was someone dabbling their fingers around in his life, they were trying to _reprogram_ folk, too? "What happened to her?" he asked, not really wanting to know. What if he _had _been abducted and loaded up with alien coding in all those Vorns he was gone? He hastily keyed up a diagnostic, just to check himself over. "How's, uh… how's her coding now?"

"Tricky to be sure." Pulsar sighed. "Upswing had problems before she was 'patched'. So far as we've been able to tell, she was carrying her trine's sparkling, and only had a few dozen orns left to go when war was officially declared."

Apparently adding two and two and (for a change) making four, something like understanding was dawning in Skywarp's expression. "…she couldn't eclose?"

Pulsar nodded agreement. "When Vos was attacked, she ended up trapped under debris, like so many. The newspark just… fused back into hers. It probably saved her life, in a morbid sort of way - pushed her into stasis, which probably explained why she got through the war more or less intact."

The teleport narrowed his gaze, suspiciously. "...and that's why they're not sure if she has _alien programming_ in her cortex?" he challenged.

_He's right; I'm still a useless liar_. Pulsar fidgeted and averted her gaze. "Winn 'autopsied' her old body, once they'd finished the refit," she explained, feebly. "And, uh, see… There were… well, Winnower found a, a… camera, of some kind."

Skywarp's optics brightened, alarmed. "…the frag?"

Judging by the way his gaze went blank and wandered away, he was running another diagnostic, Pulsar figured. "We don't know how long it was there," she lied, hastily. "It-... could have been there a long time."

Skywarp sighed and let her climb up to sit next to him. He knew he wasn't going to get anything more out of her just yet – dorky Policebot obviously thought she was trying to save him from worrying too much by making unlikely alternate hypotheses for why Upswing was full of alien junk. "That's only _one_," he pointed out, softly, finally satisfied that there were no exogenous cameras on his person. "You said I'm Skywarp number Three."

Pulsar studied her feet. "The second one wasn't really alive. Certainly not like Upswing. More of a… a puppet? A remote-controlled bunch of dead spares."

Something about her tone of voice made Skywarp immediately leery of asking for the answer. "...so, uh, what happened to that one, then?" he asked, anyway.

Pulsar kept her gaze downcast, for a moment. "I've never seen your brothers quite so psychotic," she admitted. "Not when they worked out they'd been fooled. They, um… dismantled it."

Skywarp knew an euphemism when he heard one. He cringed, involuntarily.

"They haven't talked to anyone about it," she explained, quietly, swinging her legs and nudging the tip of her foot against his. "And nobody's wanted to ask. I mean... seemed imprudent, you know?"

"No."

Pulsar gave him a sidelong glance; he was watching their feet, as though to avoid meeting her gaze. "It seemed unfair to go asking questions when they were still hurting," she explained, carefully, watching for a reaction, but his features were studiously unemotional. "And it took them – took _everyone_, to be honest – so long to get over it, we just... didn't want to open all those wounds straight back up. Didn't seem worth it, when we all knew neither would talk about it. And not when we all could, uhm... probably guess what had happened."

"Maybe I should go stick my head in the mill _now_, then," Skywarp commented, glumly. "Save them the job when they get suspicious."

"It wasn't _that_ simple, Warp." She gave him a gentle elbow in the side, which at least roused him partway out of his gloom and got his gaze back on her. "It was a good eighteen, almost nineteen vorns after you'd vanished, and we were all so relieved to have you back, we probably didn't look as closely as we should have. It took... well, just over a hundred orns to work out you weren't _you_."

"And it wasn't even a good copy. Fantastic." He folded his arms around himself and mantled his wings forwards, almost scooting Pulsar off her perch in the process. "I feel so loved."

"Hey, come on, don't be a wart." The smaller machine wriggled carefully backwards so her seat was more secure, then gathered his hand into her lap again. "The fact it was a puppet doesn't mean it was a _bad_ copy. It fooled all of us." She used her thumb to smooth dust away from the back of his hand. "That was probably what was so... crushing, about it. I've not seen your wingmates so depressed since..." _Siphon._ "...leaving Earth."

"You mean, they were embarrassed at being tricked."

"There was probably at least an element of that," she admitted, softly. "It was more... I guess _anger_, that someone had the audacity to use your death to their advantage. We were all trying to grieve, and someone had the cheek to try and use our loss to pry their way into our lives – using the thing that made them most vulnerable to try and intrude on what was left of your trine."

Skywarp watched the little yellow fingers carefully picking his hand clean of grit. Hard to imagine what it must have been like, he recognised – bad enough when the guys had been scattered to the winds on Earth, but to be unable to find them? Forced to conclude they were dead? With no outlet to bludgeon until it gave up its secrets? That would have been bad enough, without some impostor coming along and getting him excited that he'd finally got his missing brother back.

"Frag it." Pulsar made her decision. "I believe you. TC's right. There's too much _you_ in there for you to just be another copy." She relaxed into the corner formed by his wings and chassis. "I don't know if I'm grabbing at straws, or spent too long hoping, or just caught your own personal brand of stupid, but there's _something_ about you feels… _right_." She smiled, lopsidedly. "Your field's prickly in the right places."

Skywarp managed a little snort and bumped his cheek against the top of her helm. Her static envelope was close enough to intersect with his own; it felt familiarly discordant, which always amused him. Even their harmonics tended to fight. "Nice to know the criteria you're basing your judgement on."

"Trust you to narrow it all down to just the one comment. I just... want to believe it's you. I mean, _really you_." She sighed, softly, and he felt her relax ever so slightly against him. "If only so I can fragging _kill you_ for abandoning us to Screamer's mercy for so long." She emphasised the words with a little thump to the least-injured part of his chassis. "You know how _grouchy_ he's been without you around? You're like... his pressure-valve, or something. Without you around, he just... builds up in temper and volume until he explodes at the closest unsuspecting spark."

Skywarp couldn't help a little impolite snicker. "At least he's keeping 'em alert, huh?"

"I think the recruiting officer might have something to say about that. It's getting hard to recruit replacements."

For a while, they just sat quietly, enjoying each other's company.

"It'll be all right," Pulsar nudged, gently. "Now you're back."

"I guess." Another little sigh. "If I can ever get my brain around all this. This whole... future-thing."

"You'll get used to it. It's not so different-"

"I don't _want_ to get used to it, Squeaky. I want to go home! Even just _this_, it's weird. You know?" the dark jet admitted, strumming his fingers over her antennae and listening to her hum, appreciatively. "You still barely let me touch you, yesterday."

"I've had over three thousand orbits to get over everything that treacherous bunch of pipes did to me," she reminded.

"And you're still wearing these stupid things." He gave her scarf a little tug. "Don't you get tired of having to wash 'em?"

"...I know. It's silly. Sentimental. They just… reminded me of you," she admitted, with an embarrassed little noise. "Because you were always being so rude about them."

He didn't respond audibly, but she felt his large fingers carefully smooth out the crease he'd left.

"You've been gone a long time," she reminded, softly. "And I missed you, you dopy air-head."

"We only knew each other for what, a few solar orbits?" he reminded. "Not even a whole vorn, yet. I've been missing for way longer than we were together."

She remained quiet, for a few moments. "…that was what hurt to think about."

"Coulda found someone else. It's not like relationships are forever, huh? I wouldn't have been _that_ offended." Pause. "Well, not after I beat the bolts out of them for helping themselves to my squeaky Policebot while I was out of commission."

Pulsar snorted a quiet laugh. "You got under here," she pointed out, pressing her hand to her chassis. "Didn't matter to me that we'd only known each other such a short time."

A little smile played across his lips. "That does probably count as a record for the both of us, though, huh?"

"Primus only knows what part of you my subconscious fell in love with, you antagonistic fragger, because it sure wasn't your intellect," she growled, affectionately. Her gaze fell upon the tall flask still sitting unattended on the instrument trolley. "Come on; better drink up before Starscream gets on at me for distracting you. He'll probably yell at me regardless, I was only supposed to bring you this and then leave you in peace, to defragment."

"Pssh." Skywarp accepted the tall brushed silver container, and stared down at the volatile fuel. "It's not like I've got a lot _to_ defrag." Sip. "...I do feel like I just did six rounds with Menasor, though." He picked at the silver brace protecting his injured knee.

"I can leave you in peace if you want to get some rest," she offered, watching him sip uninterestedly at the lilac fuel.

"Small hope of that. Can't get comfortable," he snorted, bleakly. "Wings hurt. Chassis hurts. Can't even recharge standing up. Maybe if you hold me upright, I'll manage to go dormant sitting up."

Pulsar hauled a foam cushion down off the top shelf of the storage unit built into the wall. "How about if I prop your wings up, so your weight isn't on your chassis?"

He swigged back the last dregs of energon and eyed the foam pad. "I guess that could work," he accepted, suspiciously. "The front of my wings aren't so bad."

It took a little awkward juggling of cushions and body parts before Skywarp was even halfway back on his berth. His wings accidentally-on-purpose got in the way, so as he slumped to the berth he caught against Pulsar and dragged her with him. Instead of two cushions, his wings were now supported on one foam and one bike.

She snorted and gave him a little shove. "Glitch."

His arm snugged up her back, tucking her against his chassis. "I know. But you're better than a cushion."

"Now I'm stuck," she pointed out, nevertheless not trying to escape. "So much for leaving you in peace."

He arched his brows, smiling. "I know. You're not claustrophobic, are you?"

"Ha ha. No comment."

"So who bullied you into getting your missing bits reattached, anyway?" he wondered, eyeing her right arm. "Obviously someone more important than me."

A transient little flicker of pain creased her face, before she hastily buried it with a forced smile and touched a finger to his lips. "I'll tell you another time, eh?"

"I didn't mean it like that."

"I know. It's just… it's complicated."

He poked his tongue out. "Why do people always say that when they just mean it's embarrassing to talk about?"

Her smile quirked over into a lopsided grimace. "Semantics. Sounds better." She leaned her forehead against his. "Let's just say some of your former associates had a hand in persuading me, while they were looking for you."

He sighed and bumped noses; her field had gone even more prickly than normal against his own, and he guessed it _was_ painful to think about. "I didn't m-"

"Shush. I know." She brushed a kiss against his nose, and snerked as his optics brightened.

"Well, I'm glad you're back in one piece." He stroked his fingers down her back, amusedly, and added; "Wasn't so much fun, picking on a cripple."

She stuttered a funny involuntary little purr before getting her vocaliser back under conscious control.

His smile took on a lascivious edge. "Anyone would think you've not been touched since I vanished."

"Are you insinuating I have loose coverings?" she sniped back, before letting her voice soften to a whisper. "Didn't feel right. I missed you."

"…missed you too, Squeakbot."

"I haven't been anywhere…?"

"Sure you have. There's been some fraidy little glitch-mouse hiding in your plating ever since I went back to Earth, that first time." His lips curved into a little smile. "Tch, look. You've turned me into a sap."

"Yeah, it's scaring me a bit."

He snerked and jabbed a finger at a seam he knew was ticklish. "Get you back for that."

"I was counting on it..."

0o0o0o0o0

The sun was just edging its way up over the horizon when Thundercracker touched down in the little yard behind the emergency department. He hoped it was a _good_ sign that he'd not had any reports of Skywarp causing a ruckus, and not just that he'd slipped away again when everyone's attention had been elsewhere.

Slipping unobtrusively through the double doors at the side of A&E, he spotted Fine-tune's name still up on the board as the on-call doctor. Primus, was she _still_ at work? A little mint-green flicker in the periphery of his vision attracted his attention, and sure enough, there she was. The little medic caught his gaze as she emerged from one of the cubicles, vainly attempting to wipe splashed fuel off her chassis with one hand and straighten her antennae with the other. "Superintendent!" She waved a grimy hand, acknowledging him. "Are you here to see Skywarp?"

"I'll allow you three guesses at the answer," the Seeker replied, dryly, following her to the main desk. "If you need to use more than one of them, then you need to go defragment your stacks a bit."

The small femme _ha!_-ed nervously, and snatched up a databoard, to hastily re-acquaint herself with her unwilling patient.

"So?" Thundercracker prompted. "How is he?"

Fine-tune's features evened into an exhausted smile. "He's actually been getting some rest," she confirmed, sagging onto a stool behind the nurses' station. "Some company and some painkillers did a wonder."

Thundercracker nodded to himself; Starscream had mentioned Pulsar appeared out of nowhere and offered to take some fuel to the teleport, just as he himself was leaving.

"Speaking of rest," a deep, chastising voice rolled out, behind, "didn't I tell you to get your scrawny aft into a stasis pod for a few breems, if I couldn't bully you into going home, Patches?"

Fine-tune glanced back over her shoulder to find a pinstriped navy-blue giant looming over her. "Yes, matron. I-I was just-"

"If you append anything other than 'going right now' to the end of that sentence, I'll carry you down there myself," the nurse interrupted, demonstrating a stasis mantle.

Fine-tune cast a semi-pleading look at her visitor; Thundercracker put up his hands. "Far be it for me to interfere with the ward manager's decision, she might take a swing at me."

The nurse lifted her chin, satisfied. "Now, do I have to count to three again...?"

Fine-tune muttered something semi-embarrassed, semi-defensive. "Just let me do handover, then I'll go, all right?" She slunk away before the nurse could catch her.

"Now what did _you_ want, flatterer?" The golden gaze landed on Thundercracker. "You here to see your friend, right?" At the nod she got in response, she waved an arm at the privacy screen. "Same cubicle, go right on in."

Even before he passed through the forcefield, Thundercracker sensed Skywarp was comfortable – he could hear the faint, snoring buzz of a pinched vocaliser, and couldn't help smiling to himself. At least he'd had company, if the little white blob tucked in close to his dark shoulder was anything to go by. He'd already figured something like this might have happened, when Skyshout reported the gravity-cycle didn't turn up for her shift, and it really wasn't a surprise to find the sergeant tucked up under her Seeker's broad wings. He figured the occasional 'sickie' after countless orbits of faithful service was forgivable.

Thundercracker strummed his fingers over Pulsar's antennae, just hard enough to make them vibrate. "Hey, Pulse. Wakey wakey."

Her optics flickered and she stared muggily up at him for a moment or two until her memory kicked in. "Oh. Hi, TC," she greeted, sleepily. After a long hesitation, she added, somewhat sheepishly; "I missed my shift, didn't I?"

"By about half an orn, yeah. Skyshout signed you off as 'sick', just this once." Thundercracker held out his hands to help her up, with a knowing smile. "So long as you make the time up later."

Pulsar wriggled her way carefully out from under the dark wings wings; Skywarp's arm slithered easily to one side, its motors slack in recharge. The teleport himself hadn't even stirred; a light _buzz_ came up from his vocaliser, and his lips were open in a slack little _oh_ of sleep.

"You're satisfied he's genuinely him?" the blue jet prompted, as the smaller machine wobbled and recalibrated her gyros.

She nodded. "Genuinely _scared_, too," she confirmed. "Although he'd never outright say as much." She glanced up at him. "He wants to go home."

Thundercracker nodded, glumly. "I know. I don't know if we can. Certainly not unless Starscream can work out how he got here in the first place."

"...does he have any ideas?"

"None he's elected to share with me. I do believe Warp has actually accidentally given him his first genuine scientific challenge in the last few vorns."

"Well, you know Warp. He tests everything else to destruction, why not the barriers between time and space too?" Pulsar snorted, wearily. "Are you going to get him refit?"

Thundercracker nodded. "Well, we're going to _offer_ it," he corrected. "And I'd _like_ to be able to get him fixed up, but I've avoided broaching the subject so far, if I'm honest. Hard enough to get him to come back in the first place, I don't think I'd have _ever_ got him off that roof short of sedating him if he thought we were going to give him a 'silly plastic body' into the bargain."

"I guess it's as good as saying 'you can't go home'," she acknowledged, quietly.

Thundercracker let his hand rest on her shoulder. The intervening vorns since Skywarp had vanished had pulled the small family together – anything to erase the _hole_ in their lives. "How are _you_ holding up?"

"About as well as you guys." Sigh. "I... don't really know _how_ I feel. Like... I'm just waiting for it to fall apart." She smiled, painfully. "I don't know about you guys, but if it happens again-..."

He tightened his fingers, just enough to be felt. "It won't. We'll get to the bottom of it before we let history repeat itself."


	7. Chapter 7

**Future Tense - Chapter Seven**

**Disclaimer: **As ever, author neither claims nor intentionally implies ownership of the 'Transformers' brand, or any canon character or concept herein, who are copyright 1984-present Hasbro/etc and used with much love and respect to their creators.

* * *

Thundercracker waited until the last of Pulsar's sharp little footsteps had faded from audio range before sighing and shaking his head at the dark wings sprawled untidily out in front. _Some things _never_ change, huh Skywarp?_

"Wake up, Sleeping Beauty." He picked a swab out of the closest trolley of equipment, and used the soft end to flick at Skywarp's remaining thruster, where he knew the teleport was sensitive. "It's time for your closeup."

The response consisted of a mostly unintelligible mutter and a small shift in position, and not much else.

"Come on, Warp. Wakey wakey." He delivered another swat to his thruster, then switched the swab around and used the hard end to ping him instead. "Or I'll roll you off the berth."

Skywarp finally grunted and lifted his head. "...huh?" He stared at the wall for several seconds, before craning his neck to look for his mysterious assailant. "Oh, it's you." He promptly let his head drop back to the berth. "What do you want?"

"Good morning to you too, you lazy aft," Thundercracker agreed, dryly. "Come on, rise and shine." Flick. "I'm not waiting all orn for you."

Skywarp flopped his arms and grunted. "...wanna help me up, here?"

Thundercracker _tch_!-ed, and caught one of the flailing limbs. "You're not that badly hurt, you useless article," he scolded, amusedly.

"And you're gulli-… I mean, nice enough to help me." Skywarp peered around himself, curiously. "Where's Squeaks gone?"

Thundercracker helped him sit, carefully. "Probably to talk to her superior, seeing as she was snuggling with you in preference to actually, you know, doing the job we pay her to do."

Skywarp couldn't quite hide the little smile that split his features. "Um, that is... I mean, oops?"

"Yeah, '_oops_' I'm sure."

"Ha." Skywarp got comfortable on the edge of the berth and swung his good leg, then added, unexpectedly; "She said she missed me, TC."

He sounded genuinely confused by it; Thundercracker gave him a funny look. "Well of course she did. You sound surprised…?"

"I am, kinda." Skywarp shrugged, and wrinkled his nose. "I mean-... if it wasn't for the bitlets, she prolly wouldn't even remember me." After another of those awkward pauses, he added; "I'm surprised _they_ remember me."

"Oh, pssh!" Thundercracker laughed and gave him a friendly shove. "Lay off the melodrama, eh? Of course they remember you. Your little minions used to worship the ground you walked on, remember?"

"Yeah – until I vanished off the face of the planet."

"You know that's not what I meant."

"I know, but come on, TC. It's like asking a squishy human to remember someone they knew for like, a _breem _or two, a whole lifetime ago. After all those thooousands of vorns we've been alive, I was like..." Skywarp hunched his shoulders, and folded his arms – although it looked a lot more like a sort of protective self-hug than he intended, "some tiny, insignificant little hump in the road."

"Skywarp," Thundercracker scolded, gently. "You're not the kind of mech that makes himself easily forgettable, you know? You're our brother," he reminded, soberly. "_Family_. _We_ missed you, _they_ missed you." He waited until he was sure he had the teleport's full attention before adding; "kinda hard to get over losing your best friend, you know?"

_Shame you can't act a bit more like it. _Skywarp swallowed the comment before it could escape his vocal processor, and looked away, guiltily. _You didn't experience what they did, Warp. You'd be cautious, too, if someone had used a TC-lookie-likey to try and spy on you. _

The rattle of hollow heels sounded briefly outside, and a familiar face appeared around the screen. "Ah, good." Starscream's dark features split in a sort of half-relieved, half-reluctant smile. "You're awake. Ready to go?"

Skywarp shrank back, involuntarily defensive. "Go _where_?" he challenged, suspiciously.

Starscream directed an accusatory glance at his blue wingmate. "You didn't tell him?"

"I only got here in the last couple of breems, myself," Thundercracker defended himself. "Forty vorns made you forget how hard it is to pry Warp from his beauty sleep, sometimes?"

"Much as I would like to agree that he needs plenty of it-..."

Skywarp made an irritable noise and flicked the discarded swab at Starscream; it sailed jauntily end over end and stuck like a flag in the target's left shoulder joint. "Go. Where?" he repeated, watching as his wingmate _glared_ and plucked the offending implement out.

"To theatres." Starscream fixed him on a stare of sufficient seriousness that Skywarp got fidgety, feeling halfway inclined to snigger uncomfortably. "I've spoken with the head of surgery, and this is the last orn they're going to be able to squeeze you in between scheduled surgeries for the next ten, or so."

Skywarp wrinkled his lip, insulted. "_Squeeze me in_?" he echoed. "Thanks, that makes me feel _real_ important. What are they gonna do, use _cardboard_ and _epoxy_?"

"Well you can wait another nine orns if you like, you ungrateful little glitch, but I'm not going to let you camp out in here until then," Starscream snapped. "You'll have to come home with us, fixed or not."

For a second or two, they matched glares.

"All right, all right." Skywarp huffed and backed down. "Let's get it over and done with. I do kinda want my leg fixed..."

Seeing the big sterile white doors and humming HEPA vents in the theatres foyer put the fear of Primus into Skywarp. Doubts flared up into a mess of alerts in the back of his mind. It felt like the accusatory signs on the doors had been put there specially for him – _This is a Class A clean suite. All staff MUST pass the sonic scrub and have Grade One exhaust particulates below 35 before entering!_

_So that means YOU keep out, you useless ugly purple thing, before you drop dirt all over the nice clean floor_, Skywarp's subconscious added. You who couldn't even make it as a Con, now we're going to take you apart and rebuild you as something better.

"You know, maybe this isn't a good idea, guys," he argued, as last, as surgical staff began to accumulate in the little anteroom. His hands had closed tight in the foam surface of the berth. "I-I mean… What's gonna happen when I go back? You guys will know something weird has happened. Maybe I should stay like this."

Starscream hesitated in the clean suite doorway, accepting his overshoes from a masked little nurse, and looked back over his shoulder to find Skywarp's lips were pursed and his brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"

"Well I can't go back with my leg fixed, can I?" The dark Seeker gestured at his knee-brace. "I'll end up changing the timeline or something – and that'll change this future, and if I change the future I might not be able to go back – but then how do I change the future? And-... "

"There we will have a temporal paradox," Starscream agreed. "Colour me impressed that you managed to think that up all on your own."

Skywarp made one of _those_ gestures, to illustrate what he thought about the scarlet mech's comment, and pouted, hurt that his concerns had been batted away so easily. "And I'm sure as Pit not gonna let you take my leg _back off_ just so you can send me back, when you figured it all out!" he added.

"Well, if we work out a way to send you back," Starscream soothed, with a gritted-teeth kind of gentleness, "this future won't happen _anyway_. It only happened this way because you teleported yourself into the future – if it turns out that's what you actually _did_. If we manage to send you back-"

"_When_," Skywarp corrected, hopefully.

"All right, Warp. _When_ we manage to send you back to 'your time'? _To us, _you won't have disappeared, and we won't spend nigh on forty vorns fruitlessly looking for you. This future, as you are experiencing it now, will never happen."

"But how does that-…" Skywarp frowned. "If this future doesn't happen, how will you fix my leg to send me back? I'll be here in the future twice and what'll happen when I meet _me_? But-... how can I be here now and you don't already know about the me that went back in time? Because if I went back you'd know about it, unless I went _somewhere else_, and-... Pit, Screamer, that means you're gonna mess it up and I don't know _where_ I'm gonna end up-"

"Skywarp?" Starscream rubbed his temples and sighed, dramatically. "Just… rein in your vocaliser for a minute, will you? I can only answer one impossible question at a time." He met the anxious crimson gaze with what he hoped was a calming expression. "Don't worry about it, right now. Regardless what you do, you've broken the future. Fretting about it is counterproductive."

"Yeah." Skywarp studied his fingers, laced in his lap, and added, faintly; "My brain does kinda hurt."

"Let's just get you fixed, eh?" Thundercracker gave him a tired smile. "Screamer can blind you with bad science afterwards."

"There's nothing bad about my science," Starscream grumbled, but obediently backed out of the way of the small medic that had appeared through the doors to the clean suite. "Is everything ready, Latent?"

"We're just waiting for our patient," the little protoform agreed, amiably, offering the injured teleport a small plastic container of clear fluid.

Skywarp gave it a suspicious look and held it at arm's reach. "What's this?"

"A little sedative," Latent replied, with a reassuring smile. "Just to nudge your system to engage its recharge protocols-"

"Whoa, hey, what? You're not knocking me out-!" Skywarp waved a threatening finger, shoving the cup back at the smaller mech, and the anaesthetist backed off a step, alarmed.

Thundercracker intercepted the cup before it could end up on the floor. "Well how did you anticipate they were going to do it, Warp? You can hardly stay awake."

"Wouldn't be the first time." Skywarp turned his belligerence onto his friend. "Living with Autodorks made you forget all that battlefield medicine we had to learn? Come on, reattaching a leg is like, nothing. Painting over a scratch. I _can_ sit still, if I have to."

"Uh, sir? It's not that simple." Latent winced. "You have to go under. We need your spark to be absolutely stable. One little spike could destabilise the whole system."

"But they could do _anything_ to me, while I'm in there!" Skywarp protested. "Primus! Has a couple of vorns out of the Cons removed _everyone's_ sense of friggin' self-preservation?"

"Warp?" Thundercracker gave him a little prod in the shoulder.

Skywarp carried on, oblivious. "Gimme the parts and a welding iron, and I'll do it myself!"

"_Warp_?"

"Frag, it's not _that_ _hard-_"

Thundercracker sighed, and added a little of his boom to his voice. "_Skywarp!_"

At last the teleport's babble ceased, and the startled crimson gaze landed back on him.

"They're not going to do anything _bad_ with us two here, are they? Wouldn't _dare_. Besides, look." Thundercracker gestured at Starscream, who was busy snapping at the nurses for trying to fit the wrong set of filters over his venting. "Screamer's coming in. He'll keep an eye on them. All right?"

"Puh." Skywarp folded his arms and pouted. "You'll forgive me for not being very reassured by the idea. He's not exactly been a bundle of joy at me being back."

Starscream shot him a reproachful look. "Once we've got concrete proof of you being you, I promise to become more simpering and happy," he snapped. "Just take the virals, already."

"So it's all right for _you_ to be suspicious of me, but _how dare _I be suspicious of _you_ bunch of skinny intruders?" Skywarp sat forwards, hiking his wings confrontationally. "I've only got _your_ word this is the future! Why are you so keen to get me in there anyway, huh? Want to pull all my secrets out, is that it? Load me up with spyware, follow me around?"

"Oh _for Pity's sake_, Skywarp-!"

"We just want you back on your feet." Thundercracker attempted to lay oil. "Back in one piece and back in the air with us."

The purple hands flexed, again, and curled into uneasy fists. "So why do I have to be knocked out, huh? What's the catch you're not telling me about?"

Starscream seemed more than a little piqued at having been seen through, if the pouting glare was anything to go by. "We've not been able to source the right parts. So you either get the refit, or you have to make do with temporary parts until we can dig something up out of Vos for you."

"You're not getting me wearing that stupid plastic getup-!"

"It's not plastic, it's biphasic-"

"I'm _not wearing it_!"

"Then we'll have to patch you up with groundling components. It'll get you mobile again."

"…but I can't fly with them!"

Thundercracker cut in before Starscream could ramp up the volume. "Wouldn't it make sense to just get it out of the way?" he wondered, gently, offering the cup of drugged fuel and a sympathetic look. "You're going to need to get refitted in the long run, so you may as well get it over and done with. The quicker you're fixed, the quicker you'll be back in the air with us. Right?"

Skywarp eyed his wingmate's narrower, lighter build, warily; his suspicion couldn't _quite_ hide his dismay. "But I don't want to. Because I'm going to go home, and I won't need it. I'll get Screamer to develop some new fuel source so we don't need to have all our _mass_ stolen. Stupid... _twig-legged_ refit."

"You don't think he didn't check all those avenues to start with, did you?" Thundercracker smiled, and gave his arm a comforting pat. "Come on. It's not so bad. So we're a bit lighter, so what. These new alloys are just as tough as what you're wearing. Plus, you can go further and faster for less payload. You won't understand why you wanted to keep that boxy old getup at all, once you're back in the air."

"Yeah, thanks for making me feel like a friggin' _heifer_." Skywarp hunched his shoulder and accepted the cup from the dark fingers that held it back out to him. "Why not just go all out and say I'm fat?"

Thundercracker snorted, amusedly, and gave him a friendly punch in the arm, reassured to see Skywarp lifting the cup. "You're just the product of a different age. Gotta get with the times, mech! We'll get you up to date and up in the air in no time."

Skywarp muttered something unintelligible, and glanced at the small cluster of staff waiting patiently for him to finally down the sedative. He hesitated, cup halfway to his mouth, and bristled. "What's he doing here?"

Thundercracker followed his gaze. "Resector will be doing your surgery."

"What? Like Pit he will be!" The teleport glared as hotly as he could manage at the dark blue Autobot, who even now still wore the red emblem proudly on his chest. "You hear me, you sneery old glitch? You're not coming anywhere _near_ me with that cutlery set."

Resector sneered down at him, as though a source of noxious fumes had sprouted up under his main intake. "Trust me, nothing would please me more than booting the likes of you back out onto the street, repaired or not."

Skywarp shot his wingmate a glance. "What's wrong with getting Sepp to do it?"

"Uh-…" Thundercracker pulled a face and rubbed the back of his neck. "Forceps is a lecturer at the little college in the centre of the district, now. She doesn't do surgery any more."

Skywarp gave him a more serious, frowny look, as if trying to gauge his honesty. "Couldn't she just, uh... make an exception? Just this once?" He put on his best hurt, poutily-inoffensive face.

"She didn't give up surgery because she didn't want to put up with the likes of us any more," Starscream cut in, his tones clipped and frustrated. "She has _ingenogenesis imperfecta-_"

"An imperfect _what_?"

The red jet's wings had hiked and his expression was grim. "It's a motor disease, and it's incurable. _Which_ _means_," he elevated his voice before Skywarp could ask any more questions and snapped, "she can't do surgery, any more."

-_Will explain later._ _Sore spot_- Thundercracker's voice brushed inaudibly across Skywarp's sensory processors.

Skywarp pouted, hurt, but obediently let it drop. "How much _more_ is there you've not told me and I'm gonna have to find out by accident, guys?" He gestured with one arm and gave Thundercracker a glare. "Next you're gonna tell me Screamer and that dorky shuttle have finally got over their tiff."

A snort that could have indicated anything from disgust to sarcastic amusement came from his scarlet wingmate's corner. "How dare we try and get on with our lives, with you probably dead in the rocks somewhere?" the red jet muttered. "Just take the fragging sedative, already."

Skywarp pouted and hunched his wings. "I don't want to."

"For Primus sake, Skywarp!" Resector loomed impressively over him; outside his operating room, the imperious surgeon had never been very generously endowed with patience, especially when ex-Decepticons were involved. "This is a _favour_, you damnable winged nuisance! I've only agreed to help out so I can remove the police from my operating room."

"You just want to _cut me up_, you big sneery old blot of purge," Skywarp shot back, stabbing a finger in a threatening point.

Resector batted the hand away. "Don't push your luck."

"Or what, _fatty_? You'll sit on me? _I'm still armed_, in case you forgot." The teleport cycled his cannons, meaningfully.

"Not for long, if I have _my_ way-"

Skywarp was halfway off his berth in an instant, arms reaching for his throat, missing leg be damned.

Thundercracker managed to snag a trailing wingtip before Skywarp could go flat on his face, and dumped him unceremoniously back on his aft. "_Primus_. Guys? _Guys_." He elevated his voice just enough to be heard over the hubbub, and waited until everyone's gaze was on him before continuing. "Gimme a breem of privacy, all right? Please?"

Latent swapped a look with one of the nurses, but nodded obediently and headed out, followed – surprisingly – by Resector, still glaring but departing without fuss.

Predictably, Starscream was in no mood for 'sentiment and stupidity'. "To do _what_, precisely?" he challenged, standing to one side so the staff could get past.

"To talk to Skywarp." Thundercracker matched stares. "In private."

Starscream folded his arms and glared, making no effort to move. "Anything you need to say to him-"

"Will be private, between him and me. Just once, Star, can't you please just do what I ask without kicking off? I _know_ you don't like it when I pull rank on you, so please don't make me do it."

_TC outranks him? _Skywarp filed the curious tidbit away to grill his friend about later.

Crimson optics narrowed down to hot little slits of temper. "_Fine_. Let's just waste _even more_ time." Starscream paused by Thundercracker's wing, and hissed, softly, waving a threatening blue finger; "You need. To get him. To take it."

The threat boiling off the red jet had as much effect on his blue wingmate as it would have had on a wall. "No, I need to discuss with him _why_ he won't. I'm not _forcing_ it into his tanks."

"If he doesn't take it-"

"...-then he doesn't take it. He can come home with us, until he's ready. Just... clear off and let me talk to him, all right?"

Starscream shot the dark jet a glare, over his wingmate's slender shoulder, but at last obediently flounced, muttering invective in a dialect so old even Skywarp didn't quite catch it.

Skywarp listened as the hollow stomp of angry thrusters faded down the hallway. "I don't want 'em to do it, TC," he admitted, the instant the last voice faded away. He seemed torn between traditional Decepticon belligerence and unhappy honesty. "What happens if it goes wrong? I'll be _stuck here._ I'd rather be broken, if it means I can go home, than _fixed_ and stuck here forever."

"You _are_ home, Warp," Thundercracker reassured, gently, with a tired smile. "Is staying here really that bad?"

Skywarp refused to meet his gaze. "Some home. _You_ don't even believe I am who I say I am."

Hurt, it took the other mech a moment or two to think up an appropriate response. When the words failed to come, the blue jet reached out, and took his brother's hand; black fingers squeezed purple, reassuringly. "I'm starting to," he said, earnestly. He could feel the stilted defensiveness in his friend's static field – the physical tension through his whole frame made it feel almost like he was _buzzing_. "I _want_ to. You have no idea how hard I'm clinging to the hope you're the real thing."

The next words remained unspoken, but both mechs knew what he was thinking; _Even though bitter experience tells me Skywarp is long dead, and you're just another copy sent here to spy on us. _

"Listen, I know this whole thing is messed up. You're lost, you're hurting, and there's nothing wrong with being sca-"

"I'm not scared." The interruption was sufficiently hasty that it did nothing but prove the opposite. "Pit sake, I'm a _Con_. Don't get scared of smelt like this."

Thundercracker watched his wingmate flex his hands and fidget. His wingtips were vibrating just enough to be rattling, very softly. "If it's any consolation?" The deep voice had softened until it was little above a whisper. "_I_ am."

"What have _you_ got to be scared about." Skywarp gave him a sidelong glance – just long enough to meet the sad, honest expression on his friend's face. "_You're_ not the one they wanna mutilate. _You're_ not stuck a billion miles away from home in a place you don't even recognise, that everyone keeps telling you is home. _You're_ not sitting here with strangers telling you they're your family. You're not totally lost, scrambling around in the dark, with _thirty seven vorns_ separating you from where you should be."

"I know. I'm still scared. Scared we're going to find out where you've been, and... find out someone's... _done something_ to you." Thundercracker dropped his gaze and concentrated on drawing cool air over stressed components, before adding; "Worse, find out that you're _not you_. Again. I-… I don't think I could handle that."

The dark Seeker met his friend's gaze, silently. The haunted tone of voice was difficult to listen to.

"Last time we were so convinced. You know? _So_ sure it was you. It looked like you. Sounded like you. _Behaved_ like you, mostly! It just… had a funny static field. That was what clued us in, to start with. Once we looked harder? We figure someone had scanned you, and captured just enough top-level programming to get it to react like you would. It was so obvious that it _wasn't_ you, it was… painful." He laughed, despairingly. "Felt like idiots, grabbing at straws."

Skywarp nudged the smaller hand with his own, let their fingers interleave. "What if I promise I'm me?"

Thundercracker managed a small genuine smile, and didn't bother explaining that that was what the copy had said, too, almost verbatim. "I know." He swallowed down the static sticking in his vocaliser and forced the words out, even though he wasn't sure how true they were, precisely; "I trust you."

Skywarp stared down into the little cup of clear fuel in his hand. "Maybe-… maybe I did lie a bit, TC," he admitted, quietly. "I am scared, a little bit. There's so much about this all that can get completely fragged, I don't want-..." His words petered away into nothing, briefly. "It's not fair, TC. I wanna go home. _Proper_ home."

"I know. But it'll be over soon, and you can come home with us." Thundercracker watched him, silently willing him to just _take_ the _medicine_. "Mobile on your own two legs, right? Screamer'll work his magic, and work things out, then we can send you back to your time."

Skywarp lifted the cup to his lips. "Well you better fix it, because I'm not staying here forever," he threatened, feebly, and finally swallowed the mouthful of tainted fuel. "Uuugh, that's nasty." He let his hand flop to his side, fingers slack.

Thundercracker intercepted the little pot before it could escape the cage of purple fingers and vanish somewhere to get broken on the floor, and slotted his own hand into the bright palm. Skywarp already looked distinctly woozy, as the nanite-laced fuel dumped unfamiliar programming into his mainframe. "It'll be fine, I promise."

"Just don't let them hurt my parts," the teleport mumbled, his grip loosening as he slowly succumbed to the virals, fighting them every step of the way. "I'll-... I'll need 'em to ghhh-... go home."

"It's okay. We're not going to let anyone damage them."

"...I mean it, TC. ...it'll change the timeline... if I go back lookin' all skinny like that-..." His optics flickered out, briefly, like a guttering candle. "...then Screamer'll get mmm-... mad at me... for breakin' time again."

"I know." Thundercracker managed a smile. "We'll make sure they take good care of you. I'll even arrange for them to hand your old body over to Screamer for safekeeping, all right?"

"…right." After another of those long pauses, where it was only the low, damson flickering of Skywarp's optics that proved he was awake, the dark mech finally added; "…don' wanna-… do this."

"I know."

"…m'scared…"

"Don't be. We've got you. You'll wake up and won't know what you could have possibly been worried about."

At last, Skywarp's fingers went slack and his optics dimmed right out. Reassuringly, the uneasy stutter of his fans evened back out to a relaxed hum.

-_ok. He's offline_- the blue Seeker pinged.

Starscream was first to barge back into the foyer, and for several long seconds could only stare down at the peacefully sedated Skywarp, before finally glancing up and meeting his friend's carefully-not-smug expression. "All right, I give in. What did you use to bribe him?"

"Uhh... Honesty?" Thundercracker smiled, meaningfully. "You should try it, occasionally."

"Honesty is overrated." Starscream flapped a hand.

"Evidently." Thundercracker took a step back so Latent could get to Skywarp's insensate form, and watched the anaesthetist plug a fingertip sensor into a little subsurface diagnostic port on his chest.

"Ok, ok, good," Latent said, nodding mostly to himself, once the report had come back. "We're green across the board. Let's get him onto the generator..."

"Makes a change from it being you wheeled in, eh, Screamer?" Thundercracker teased, trying to relax a little of the tension out of the air, standing next to the doorway and watching as the team carefully wheeled the berth with their reluctant patient through the doors.

"Oh hush. The last time it wasn't my fault. I can't help it if half my lab techs are incompetents. And you! Make sure no-one gets rid of the washings from the scrub, I need them!" Starscream shouted, at Latent's departing back. "If I find out they've been flushed, I will have the culprit's head for a paperweight!"

"What's this – concern for our little brother at last?"

The glare deepened. "Reasonable concern, I'd say. I'm not getting tricked again. Besides." Starscream drew himself to his full height, although the effect of his flaring wingspan was rather lost on someone used to rolling his optics at it every day. "_You're _hardly one to take the moral high ground, seeing as you've quite clearly made your mind up."

"Yeah. Mostly." Thundercracker finally let his gaze wander, finding himself an interesting tile on the floor and studying its edges. "...you know how bad I want it to be him?"

Starscream glanced away with a sigh. "Me too," he confessed, quietly. "And I know I'm going to regret saying this, but-"

"Yeah," Thundercracker agreed, before Starscream had even finished, and spoke in unison with him; "-it's too good to just be a copy."

"Primus, I hope we're right."

"And you haven't even plucked up the courage to talk to him properly, you big wuss." Thundercracker gave his wingmate a sidelong look; he hadn't even risen to the bait, for once, too busy quietly fussing while the nursing staff fitted his filters. He clearly had a lot on his mind. "What are you thinking about?"

The scarlet jet offered a cynical look in return, leaving dirty thruster-circles on the sticky mat as he stepped across it into his pair of sturdy, custom-built overshoes. "You want the full list, or am I all right to abbreviate it?"

"Abbreviated is fine."

Starscream snorted, humourlessly. "Mostly? I'm thinking how best to tell him I _can't_ send him 'home'."

Thundercracker straightened, uneasily. "That's not what you were saying a few breems ago."

"A few breems ago I was trying to bribe him into consenting for surgery, I'd have said anything." Starscream's dark face curled into a particularly grim look. "Come on, TC. The truth can wait a couple of breems, until he can't back straight back out."

Thundercracker sighed; he couldn't fault the scientist's logic. The way things had gone thus far, Skywarp would undoubtedly have assumed that it was just another shade of Starscream-coloured bloody-mindedness and dug his own thrusters in.

"Well you can't just leave it there," he chased. "What makes you think you can't send him home?"

"He said there was a... a sensation of _cold_, when he teleported, yes?" Starscream used an elbow to turn on the sprayer and apply a layer of dark blue protective glove to both arms.

Thundercracker nodded. "Like everything had stopped, briefly," he confirmed. "Does that mean something to you?"

"It _didn't_, at first. I've been thinking how that related to his teleporting, and the only solution I've been able to come up with is that that's literally what happened. Everything did just _stop_."

"…no offence, but that doesn't make much sense."

"Simply put? It sounds like he's not moved _through_ time, but been stuck in some sort of, of... quantum limbo, I suppose, for all the time he's been gone. He dematerialised just fine, but something scrambled his gate and stopped him rematerialising after his jump – so time effectively stopped for him."

"So why isn't he still in limbo? What brought him out of it?"

Starscream glared and had to work hard not to huffily plant his still-damp hands on his hips. "Granted let me think about it for a few more breems before asking me the impossible?"

Thundercracker put his hands up, soothingly. "I was just putting the ideas out there. Something we can look into. Could be that explosion which messed up his gate, right? I can pre-empt Winnower to pull the scans out of the archive."

Starscream nodded, consideringly. "Footloose didn't teleport until she was back on the surface, which was some orns after all those exotic particulates had faded, did she?"

"Well you best hurry up, or they'll be done in theatres before you've even got to the scrubber." Thundercracker managed a wan smile. "Keep me appraised, yeah?"

"Of course."

"Oh- just one more thing?"

Starscream waved his hands in a get-on-with-it gesture.

"…I think _I_ ought to be the one to tell him he might not be going 'home' for a while, when he comes round."

Starscream winced and nodded, grimly, stepping back and triggering the doors to close. "I think that'd be a very good idea."

The still air and muted hum of the fans felt eerily stifling, once the doors had finally shut, slicing off the chilly outward breeze from the fans and reassuring chatter from the staff within. Thundercracker drew a long smooth pulse of cold air through his vents – he'd not really even been aware that he'd stilled his fans most of the time he'd been talking to his brothers, but now he noticed the stuffy warmth that had built up in his chassis. It didn't help the awkward, uneasy surges in his harmonic – Primus, this better be the real thing, this time! He sent a silent prayer to whichever friendly deity might be listening.

"Um, Superintendent?"

The voice jostled him gently out of his introspection, and he glanced back over his shoulder to find Celerity lurking just inside the corner, watching him. Of course, positioning requests had been pinging off his firewalls all orn – with better things to do right now than listen to Deixar's residents squabbling, he'd automatically blocked most, except those of his deputies. Clearly the big femme had finally taken it upon herself to follow his signal.

"Everything all right, chief inspector?" He forced a half-smile.

"Councillor Waveguide is still pushing for an update on what's going on along the quay," she reminded. "Nightsun and I have run out of excuses for him." Beat, sigh. "I know you've got bigger things to worry about, sir, but he's camping out in my office, and I can't get rid of him or work around him. Vector's at the point of bodily evicting him, and I don't really want him to make _another_ complaint about our division."

"Gah. I should have known _he'd_ not care for my right to a little privacy for once. That cantankerous old barge needs a better hobby," the blue jet grumbled. "Sorry for dumping him on you. Tell you what – I have plenty of unresolved stress building up, let's go boot him out together..."


	8. Chapter 8

**Future Tense - Chapter Eight**

**Disclaimer: **As ever, author neither claims nor intentionally implies ownership of the 'Transformers' brand, or any canon character or concept herein, who are copyright 1984-present Hasbro/etc and used with much love and respect to their creators.

* * *

_Core harmonic: stable. _

_Spark: stable. _

_Magnetic bottle: stable. _

_Power intermix good, no major spikes recorded this time index._

_Checking circuit patency… All green. _

_Cognitive pathways rebooting… _

_…_

_Reboot successful. Logic/emotional intermix normal. Caution: parameters do not correlate with last known functional. Checking… _

…

As he returned slowly – reluctantly – to the land of the awake and functioning, the first thought that came to Skywarp's meandering consciousness was relief at the discovery that he was in fact still alive. Not that it was _much_ of a relief-

_Audio receptors: offline. Rerouting power. _

_Optic receptors: offline. Rerouting power._

-because not much seemed-

_Vocaliser: offline. Rerouting power… reboot required._

_Gyroscopes: offline. Reboot and recalibration required._

-to actually be _functional_.

_Motor complex: offline. Rerouting power. Reboot to be attempted at next time index point. _

_Positional fix: unable to fulfil command. Antennae non-functional. _

Whether some idiot junior tech had installed things wrong or he was just having trouble adapting to the new programming, he had no idea, and-

_Vocaliser – parameters incorrect. Attempting recalibration… failed. Recalibrate now._

-it wasn't as if he could friggin' _ask_ anyone either. Frag's sake!

_Optic receptors – parameters incorrect. Attempting reboot… 76% successful. Recalibrate at earliest convenience. _

_Audio receptors – parameters incorrect. Attempting reboot… 44% successful. Urgent recalibration required._

For several long moments, Skywarp just stared at the ceiling – at least, he figured the big expanse of white nothing was the ceiling, but with all his gyroscopes offline and pointing in funny (nauseating) directions it could have been anything.

Frag it, why did everything have to be _blurry_? He could feel the irises in his optics flexing randomly in a useless attempt to focus – the sensation wasn't painful, as such, but it was certainly _uncomfortable_, especially given that each iris seemed to be working independently of the other. He tried to will them to stop, without a lot of success.

After a moment, two fuzzy blue blobs with false-colour haloes and little lights in them appeared in his field of view, one from each side.

"…hi!" Distorted, friable words came at him as though echoing down a very long pipe and bouncing off the damping gel packed into his audio receptors. Sounded like that weedy little anaesthetist. What did _he_ have to be so friggin' cheerful about? "…ll ok?"

Skywarp opened his mouth to argue that no he was _not _'all ok', he _felt_ half smelted and could they _please_ pump him full of something to make it _feel_ better, but all that came out was a long, awkward groan, like a squeal of feedback transmitted and distorted over thousands of miles. His vocaliser reported back that it was attempting to operate under a faulty dataset and was unable to process vocal commands correctly. _Great. I can't even _disagree_ with them._

Luckily, they weren't so stupid as they looked, and rapidly twigged that he wasn't just moaning for effect. "…s like there's some… ancies in there," the second blue blob commented, disappearing momentarily out of the field of fuzzy white nothings. "…let me… a quick scan…"

Hands carefully felt their way across Skywarp's new chassis and tweaked open a small compartment just off his midline, close to his collar. A sharp pain and shock of cold accompanied the insertion of a small scanning probe into the new socket.

Skywarp grunted in discomfort through his fans – huh, so at least he could manage _that_ much – and tried to sit up and push the small mech away, but a cacophony of faults accompanied the movement. His offline gyroscopes all span giddily on their spindles – he groaned and tried to follow the direction most of them instructed, and the… floor? …loomed up in his vision.

"-…whoa, care-…" What felt like a dozen small hands (but he couldn't work out quite _how _many) smeared over his new armour, fizzing a strange, staticky almost-pain through his torso, and hauled him back onto the berth. "…don't want-… a nosedive…"

Skywarp thrashed his arms, increasingly alarmed. _What were they going to do now? _Had to escape, somehow, before they broke his brain any more. _Get off. Leave me alone!_ He felt his hands connect with at least one of the little bots hanging on to him, and the subsequent clatter and muted curse proved that at least his arm was no less strong than it used to be.

The flicker of satisfaction at successfully defending himself against the assailant he could barely see quickly faded when another handful of blue shapes – much _bigger_ blue shapes, probably nurses – hastily converged on him. Hands – larger hands, stronger hands – navigated skilfully around his flailing limbs and pinned him down. No amount of struggle persuaded them to let him go.

"…right, let'-… what's wrong-… sharp cold, allri-...?"

_Touch me again and I'll fragging kill you_, Skywarp wanted to snap, but the pathetic distorted little groan that escaped his lips had zero effect on the little mech that carefully plugged back in to the primary diagnostic port on his upper chest. An exogenous consciousness interlinked with his own – his firewalls struggled briefly to keep the unfamiliar programming from accessing his diagnostics before buckling under a skilled onslaught. It felt almost like having actual fingers thumbing through the different levels of his coding, as though flicking through a physical directory.

_Easy there, Skywarp,_ a non-corporeal voice soothed, dumping straight into his cognitive centre and bypassing his audio processors altogether. It was like listening to one of his own thoughts, as though it had developed a life of its own. _We just need to reinstall some of your new protocols, because your system's not processing them properly. Things will get more comfortable once we've got your system to accept the new parameters, all right?_

Before Skywarp could work out how to respond to the thought, one of his cooling fans hitched, spluttered, and failed. A temperature alert strummed painfully across the front left side of his chassis.

Panic rose like a set of clutching fingers around his spark, and he felt the sudden need to violently purge his tanks. _Broken, broken broken-… what have they done to me?_

"…easy, easy-… Vigil…? …patch over…?" Hands steadied his shoulders, pinning him more firmly against the berth. "…rejecting. We need-… replace… _now_."

_Rejecting? What was rejecting? _He forced out a questioning moan, and clawed at the hands holding him still. _Let me up. Primus, let me up - escape! _His pumps clutched and spasmed in his chassis.

"…easy, we'-… fixed up… reinstall-… revise param-… nice nap, ok?"

A sharp _pinch _in one of his primary fuel lines made him jump and attempt to startle away, but a spot of intense cold spread up the right side of his neck and he felt the fight bleed away from his limbs. Motors slowed, cables slackened, autonomous mobility became impossible. He moaned feebly and flopped his hands, before even that ability fled away from his grasping processors.

…_maybe it _would_ be nice to just go dormant again_, his deeper programming suggested, as the sedative carefully wrapped a nice cosy blanket of sleep back around his brain, and for once his higher functions agreed. He felt his bulk settle deeper into the soft memory foam surface of the berth, and drifted away into recharge.

0o0o0o0o0o0

_All right, subconscious. Remind me. _Why_, precisely, did I want to do this?_

For several interminably long astro-seconds, Starscream simply stood and stared tiredly down on the dulling black and purple remains Winnower had carefully laid out on the coroner's table. After all that imaginative bribery he'd needed to use to persuade Resector to sign them over in the first place, now he'd _got_ Skywarp's unneeded old parts, he didn't really _want_ them, he'd found.

The fact that this was just a shell, like the moulted-off carapace of some ungodly huge insect, and the hospital had reassured him that the spark that had previously inhabited it was safely and (semi-)stably installed in a brand new frame, didn't make it any easier to tolerate. It still left him with a sort of twitchy anxiety deep in his chassis, an unpleasant disharmony, like he'd had a bad unit of energon.

With a spark no longer resident to control the nanite-based micro-repair system, the nanometre-thick exterior protective seal had begun to break down, leaving the exterior dull, almost dusty-looking. Even that hideous lurid purple Skywarp had been so proud of had started to look strangely muted. More like great big areas of organic _bruise_. The flat, grey optics looked dead and sunken, now the cortex had been excised from behind them, leaving the face with an uncomfortable resemblance to a skull.

To Starscream, it reminded him of what he used to see in the early stages of the war – machines flogged to breaking point for their fuel, and dumped in the streets to grey out. Dusty, dirty, dying machines.

He placed his palms down on the table and rested his weight against them, tiredly. _Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on _me_. Fool me a _third _time…_

No. There was going to be no "third time". That would be unacceptable. Inexcusable. If he had to fully dismantle this cold, greying shell, and go over each tiny component with a microscope, to get to the bottom of it, then that was just what he was going to have to do.

Blue fingers interlaced and flexed, like those of a famous pianist warming up for a recital, then selected a microscalpel out of the tray of tools, and began to cut through the flexible membrane holding the dark plating together.

_Not getting attached again,_ he reminded himself, easing a scuffed, scratched plate away from its housing in the dark back. _Not like last time. Not going through all that slag, all over again. Not enduring the wrench of thinking Skywarp is finally back, to find it's just some… some new _mockery_ of it all._

Treating the remains as though they were just another long-dead Seeker from before the war was helping, a smidgen. Helped him maintain just enough distance to keep his emotions level. Primus only knew how many other such pathetic, broken bodies he and Winnower had autopsied, since New Vos had asked for help in giving names to the shells they were encountering as they cleared away all the twisted wreckage the war had left behind.

The un-enamelled underside of the palm-sized piece of old plating was a spiderweb of old welds, the hallmark of close to a lifetime spent at war. Painful though it was to look at, recalling what had probably caused the damage, it _did_ inspire some confidence that maybe this _was_ – at last, oh Primus please – the genuine article.

By the time a sleek blue figure rapped his knuckles on the door to announce his arrival, and made his careful way down the staircase to the laboratory floor, there wasn't a whole lot left of the body on the table. A residual structural skeleton, half a wing, a fuel tank, and endless yards of cable and pipe, all unwound and spilling over the sides of the table and across the floor in a morbid parody of organic intestines. All the removed components had been carefully sorted into size and type, and placed into a series of baskets labelled up in Starscream's small, precise handwriting.

Thundercracker halted at the head of the table, trying not to look too hard at the faceless, hollow helm, and arched a brow. "Uh, far be it for me to challenge you, but… I hope this isn't how you're interpreting the 'keep safe' part of Warp's request. He might be a bit unhappy that you _dissected_ him."

Starscream made a dismissive noise and wiped joint lubricant off his hands with a dirty rag. "He doesn't need it any more, and I'm not keeping it in a cupboard so be can be sentimental about it." He picked another small piece of plating out of the basket labelled 'awaiting testing' and frowned at it before slotting it into a desktop ultrasound bath. "Had you heard he's managed to landed himself in intensive care, post-op?"

"What - like you did, the first two times?" Thundercracker gave him a patient smile. "Yes, I heard. The pair of you need to learn a little more trust for your fellow mechs, and set your firewalls a little less high."

Starscream curled his lip and declined to comment.

"So, uhm… what have you found so far?" It was difficult not to look too hard at the dark, gaping hole in the chassis, where ordinarily there would have been the subtle glow of a stable spark.

"Nothing," Starscream replied, sounding oddly pleased by the revelation. "Absolutely nothing."

"…isn't that a bad thing?"

"Not when you're looking for biological materials and _not finding them_."

Thundercracker remained quiet, for several seconds. "…would you like to remind me exactly what you _mean_ by biological materials?"

Now was Starscream's turn to remain silent, in that carefully nonchalant way that Thundercracker had long ago come to recognise as meaning 'whoops, just said that tiny bit too much.'

Thundercracker folded his arms, and lifted his chin, irritably. "Let me guess. This would be _something else_ you've conveniently Not Told Me about the last time you did this."

"I didn't intentionally keep anything from you." Starscream flipped a dismissive hand. "It just wasn't important."

"Not important _by whose standards_?" The urge to go and bang his head against the wall was rising by the astro-second. "Did you not think that finding biological materials on the facsimilies might mean there was something in the district we should be aware of, and taking steps to eradicate?"

"Oh, _please_." Starscream cast his gaze skywards, exaggeratedly. "I didn't just ignore the signs. I went out to look for answers myself, and sent out probes to investigate, and found nothing. It wasn't important." He offered a witheringly sarcastic look. "Primus forbid that I take up our beloved Detective Superintendent's valuable time with _my_ irrelevant commentary. I'm just the grunt, after all."

Thundercracker's expression deepened into a genuine glare, optics narrowing to hot little chips of crimson. "If you're _still_ sore that I've finally got off my aft and made my way to a higher rank than you, all these vorns later, then please, let's get over that now, shall we?" he snapped, gesturing angrily. "There was nothing at all to stop you running for the same post. I'd have probably pulled my application if I knew you wanted it."

"I wasn't interested in it. I have better things to do than spend my precious time babying worried Autobots."

Thundercracker vented hot air in an angry sigh. "Fine, so this is all about you being _petty_, and keeping things secret from me. As though it was some kind of-… of _point-scoring._ Primus. Is this just your way of clawing back a little control? We're supposed to be _wingmates, _remember? You know you're still trineleader-"

"Oh, like _that_ counts for much, any more."

"-and I have _always _respected and acted on your opinion. So don't you give me that!"

"Everything you're stamping on my tailfins about was in my report," Starscream snapped, wings hiked, waving a threatening finger. "Don't get on _my_ case because you only ever bothered to read the abbreviated version."

"You never told me you'd ever _finished_ the full report."

"I put it on the department server. It's been sat there for _anyone_ to see."

Thundercracker hastily checked the files, and sure enough, there was the report. "Why in Primus name would I check for a report _half a_ _vorn_ after you finished doing the autopsy?" he spluttered. "What was it, sneak it on there without telling me, hoping I would never see it?"

"I failed to see the need to bother you with it, given that I'd notified you of all the important data." Starscream plucked the clean chunk of plate out of the ultrasound bath and set it down into the dessicator. "These bits of biological fluff you're now obsessing over were completely inconsequential."

Thundercracker dropped his voice to a growl. "If you're going to dismiss my concerns like that, at least have the decency to _look_ at me."

To his surprise, Starscream did actually look up. It was a very _dirty_, _resentful_ look that got shot his way, but at least the scarlet mech wasn't glaring resolutely down at his work and ignoring him, in the hope the 'annoyance' would just give up and go away.

"If you can't possibly accept that Skywarp was right about his 'gremlins', then that's your prerogative," Thundercracker growled, softly. "But I will _not_ have you putting everyone else at risk because you're too embarrassed to admit that you're fallible as a consequence." He straightened, subtly, and squared his wings. "Your report – your _full_ report, totally unabridged – will be on my desk in two orns. Understood?"

Starscream drew himself up to his full height and snapped off a sarcastic salute. "Of course, _sir_. Your wish is my command, oh mighty leader."

"How about you take that tone of voice and go stick it up your exhaust, Screamer. You don't have to take it out on me because you can't admit to being scared. And Primus forbid anyone make the mistake of thinking you're pleased to have Skywarp back, or anything." He threw his hands up, in semi-despair. "I'm going to see if they'll let us go visit him, yet," he snapped, pivoting on his heel.

"You do _know_ he's in intensive care?"

"Then it'll be a short visit, won't it? And where better to get him to have a complete nervous breakdown, eh? Between us, we'll have managed to complete the set. And within ten orns of his return, congratulations!" He lowered his voice and muttered, just loudly enough to be heard; "Anyone would think he missed squaring off against _Megatron._"

Predictably, after a moment or two, _just_ as he'd got a foot through the door, a reluctant voice spoke up from behind. "Uhm, TC…? Hold up." The soft purr of the ultrasound went abruptly silent, and the _thok_s of hollow heels approached hastily across the floor. "I, uh… might as well tag along. Make sure the installation went all right, and such."

Thundercracker held the door for him. "I'm just as scared as you," he reminded, quietly. "Let's not take it out on each other just yet?"

0o0o0o0o0o0

This world, Skywarp found, as he tiptoed his reluctant way back online some orns later, was not _that_ much more pleasant than the world he'd crash-landed in the last time he'd woken up. The room he found himself in was decorated in a soothing but very sterile shade of pale greeny blue, with one distinct change to last time; it was all in lovely crisp focus, and the light panel in the wall opposite lacked those hideous, jaggy false-colour haloes. The quiet was genuine, too – not just quiet because his audios were playing tricks on him.

…aaaand ohhh frag it everything _ached_. Actually, no, all right, it wasn't really an _ache_, as such, because it was more _discomfort_ he was feeling than pain, specifically. Maybe… _stiff_ fitted better. Yeah, that worked. _Everything_ was stiff – and Primus, it had to be serious when he didn't feel the slightest bit like turning it into innuendo.

"..._uuugh_..." The groan spilled its own way out of his vocaliser with no real conscious control. "…fffraggit." Well, at least he had his voice back.

The noise alerted his… guest? Guard? Whatever he was… to the fact he was stirring. The little blue mech sitting at the end of the berth – Vigil, Skywarp vaguely recalled – hooked his feet down off the frame and put his journal to one side, and snagged a tall, slender silver flask up off the cabinet next to his chair. "Hi," he greeted, smiling inanely. "Feeling all right?"

"Ha ha." Skywarp rubbed his temples and tried to bleed off some of the painful coolant pressure in his cortical housing, then eyed the flask and felt his pumps cramp in sympathy. "Pitsake, did you _have_ to leave my tanks empty?"

"Well, you've been on the generator for a while," Vigil explained. "We didn't want you purging your tanks while you were still operating under cognitive conflicts, you'd have probably ended up sucking fuel into your temperature regulator."

"…you trust me to drink now?" Primus, his arm felt so _heavy_ – so much for 'lighter and go further'. It took a good few moments intense concentration just to lift his hand off the berth. "Ungh." He glared at his (new, stupid, skinny, useless, silver) arm. If Resector had told him they'd used a significant proportion of _lead_ in these new alloys, it would have taken no evidence to convince Skywarp that he was being wholly, utterly no-smeltery honest. "Why is this so fragging _difficult_?"

Vigil carefully took his hand and guided his patient's fingers around the flask, ensuring he had a good grip before letting go. "Well, you _mass_ a lot less, but everything in your construction is completely new, and inflexible. Everything will still be quite hard to move." The mech offered a shy smile. "Once you're fuelled up and getting more comfortable, I can call the physiotherapists along to help you start to loosen up."

"Couldn't _you_ just, y'know, have loosened things up a little while you were doing it?" Every single actuator, all the way down to the smallest one in his littlest finger, was stiff and tight. Elastomeric connectors felt almost solid. Even now he'd warmed up a fraction, servo-fluid felt thick and sludgy, and joint lubricant felt more like _glue_. At least the energon was good – thin, volatile, and deliciously crisp and cool. It was tempting to down the entire flask in one go.

"Better that you adapt for yourself," Vigil demurred. "If we loosen the connectors, we'll have to go back in and tighten them up once you've adapted, and that might leave them overstretched. Don't want you to pop a connection at a bad time, heh."

"Yeah, kinda not seeing the funny side, here." Skywarp took refuge in his flask. He felt like he'd been to see Hook for a minor repair, caught the construction mech on a bad day, and had the surly 'Con tighten every single actuator in his body as punishment for daring to disturb his peace, like he did to Thrust once. (And at least seeing Thrust walking stiff-legged had contained _some_ vague humour value. This had no prospect for giggling at whatsoever.)

"Well the physiotherapists will be along to see you soon," Vigil soothed. "They'll get you feeling like yourself again in no time. I'm sure you'll be fine to go home in another dozen orns or so."

"A _dozen_?" Skywarp promptly choked on his energon.

0o0o0o0o0o0

"So. How is he doing?"

Vigil glanced back at Thundercracker, following a pace or so behind him (and the sour-faced, arms-folded Starscream, just far enough behind his wingmate to make it clear he was not particularly impressed with the situation) and nodded, thoughtfully. For the last few orns, Skywarp hadn't been in any fit state to entertain visitors – either dormant, struggling to integrate new code, or growling exhaustedly at the physiotherapists, in equal measures – but now his wingmates had finally been given the green light to go and visit. The last time his wingmates had actually _seen_ him, the teleport was still in intensive care, dormant and looking unnaturally peaceful while his systems battled against the unfamiliar new set of protocols.

"Seems to be doing well, _now_," the anaesthetist confirmed. "We had to keep a very close watch on him for the first three or four orns, he kept rejecting the initial patches and trying to roll back to earlier datapoints his system recognised as functional – like Starscream did, remember? Too great a sense of self-preservation, we figured, heh." He smiled, wryly, and rubbed his shoulder. "He's still got a good arm. Been raising Pit for the physiotherapists, too."

Starscream snorted a little noise of sarcastic amusement through his vents. Thundercracker had again resorted to half-bullying him into coming along, but both inwardly recognised it was mostly for the benefit of his eavesdropping lab-technicians, who were getting altogether too complacent for their commander's liking. "Well, that certainly _sounds_ like our Skywarp," he accepted, dryly. "Never one to just take friendly advice without turning it into a fight."

-_Like __you're__ one to talk._- Thundercracker pinged, giving him a friendly elbow.

Vigil heh'ed and planted a palm down on the little recognition plate beside the door, which chirped and flashed a green light; the privacy lock disengaged, and the door slid quietly open.

The small group passed through the wide door into the high-dependency cubicle, to find an exhausted, damson-eyed silver flier sitting on its berth, propped on a foam wedge and surrounded by temperature regulators, _glaring_ _horribly_ at them.

"_You_ are a _pair_ of glitching _afts_," it grumbled, in a wavery, poorly-tuned version of Skywarp's voice, waving a stiff arm in a threatening point at the two Seekers. "Why didn't you warn me about _this_ bit, huh? It'll be easy, no problem – unless you, you know, actually _mind_ being yanked around by a bunch of overenthusiastic fraggers pretending to try and help you. I feel like one of those frickin'... _modelling balloons_." The arms folded, stiffly. "I hate the pair of you now, I hope you realise."

"Come on, Warp, don't be like that…" Thundercracker soothed, gently, with a little roll of the optics. "You've been refit before, you know it takes at least an orn or two to acclimatise. And it's nice to see you at last. You're looking good."

"You mean I look like _every other _skinny little twig-legged silver protoform," Skywarp corrected, sourly, but his grumble couldn't quite hide the genuine distress underlying his words. "When am I going to get _repainted _to go with this stupid refit?"

"But you look so clean, and so _shiny!_ I almost didn't recognise you!" Starscream quipped.

"Exactly! And I don't _want_ to be some clean, shiny little nonentity, I want to be _me_."

Thundercracker smiled. "Silver doesn't look so bad on you, Warp," he reassured. "Better than that optic-blinding purple."

Skywarp's brow furrowed into a deeper glare. "But I don't. Want. To be _silver_. Silver's such a... _dorky_ colour." He gestured at Starscream, for emphasis. "I might have been hideous colours but at least I was _uniquely_ hideous."

Starscream curled his lip, but (miraculously) held his tongue.

"Right, so. Aside from looking like a silver dork, how are you feeling?" Thundercracker coaxed.

"Like I've been rollin' round in concrete," Skywarp groused, sullenly, waving stiff arms for emphasis. "I'm stiff and achey all over, the physios have been jumping on me all orn, and it sucks."

"You just need to work the components a little," Thundercracker reassured. "They'll ease up and get more flexible with a little time."

"Small chance of _that_ then, if you're gonna be sending me home soon."

His wingmates swapped looks, but Skywarp wasn't paying attention.

"I'll have just got comfortable in this useless stick-legged thing when Screamer's got it sorted, and you'll have to dump me back in the broken one so I can go home without breaking time again, the way my luck's going." The teleport gave them a semi-pleading glance. "And I'm not spending the whole time in this old dump, either. When can I leave, huh? You're gonna let me come stay with you guys for a while, right?"

"...we are, but not just yet." Starscream nodded. "You need to stay here a little longer while you get used to your new code."

Skywarp levelled a glare at him. "But you said-"

"I know what we said. Just hear me out, for once." Starscream's voice was actually somewhat gentle; Skywarp wasn't sure if he found it more _reassuring_, or _worrying_. "It was a full refit. They've primed your systems, but you're the one who's going to have to adapt your coding to the new parameters. This isn't new information, Warp, I know they've already told you that you need to stay in hospital for a few more orns more while the physiotherapists help get you acclimatised to your new frame."

Skywarp looked openly disgusted by the idea. "Yeah well I need some fresh air. It can't be that hard to get used to." After a second or two of struggle, he managed to swing his thrusters over the side of the berth. "Like frag I'm gonna stay in this dump any longer than I have to. Going sky crazy, here. You're gonna come for a walk with me, right?" He shoved himself to his feet and stomped to the door… or at least, _attempted_ to. He completely underestimated his new lighter build and overcompensated for mass that wasn't there any more.

The look of horrified shock on his face as he inadvertently _hurled_ himself square into Thundercracker was so comically genuine that both his wingmates spontaneously erupted into peals of apologetic laughter.

"You-… _afts_!" Skywarp spluttered, in his shock unable to come up with a better insult. "Freaking pair of sump-sucking _afts_! What have you done to me?" He clutched at Thundercracker, feet skidding and skating across the floor in his frantic efforts to regain his balance, on legs that were too stiff to respond to his increasingly frantic commands. The pitch of his voice rose dramatically in alarm. "Put me back to normal _rightnow_!"

"Steady, Warp, steady!" Thundercracker managed, at last getting his humour under control. "Why do you think we said you had to see the physios? You're a lot lighter than you used to be, you'll need to re-learn how to move properly. Now _stand still_ and I'll help you get your balance, all right?"

"Pair of useless slaggers." Skywarp groused a little more sullen invective, his glare deepening as his words had the opposite effect to what was desired, but managed to (just about) do as he was told. "I bet you did this on purpose, to make me look stupid."

"Pah. As if you need any help with _that..._" Starscream sniped, taking Skywarp's free arm and helping get him back onto his berth.

They chattered quietly for a while longer, until Skywarp's 'favourite' burly green physiotherapist arrived "for another orn of torture", at which point Starscream promptly took the excuse to vanish.

When Thundercracker finally tracked his friend down, the scarlet jet was standing in the observations gallery above Skywarp's room, arms folded across his chest, supposedly to "keep watch" – although his optics were a low, tired maroon, barely lit, so whether he could actually make anything out through the static was anyone's guess.

"Shouldn't you go and get some rest?" Thundercracker scolded, gently, watching the slow back-and-forth sway in his friend's tired, curved back. "You've been up the last three orns. He doesn't need round-the-clock care from us as well."

"Pssh. He's tried to sneak off twice, the silly aft," the pale jet disagreed, his unnaturally quiet voice crawling with tired distortions. "He's going to bash himself to pieces if he carries on this way."

"So… it was less 'sneak' and more 'assault the wall'?" Thundercracker guessed, trying not to smile too broadly. Nice to know that whatever else was going on, some things never changed.

Starscream nodded, apparently resisting the urge to roll his optics.

"Look, you go home and get some rest before you _fall_ down. I'll keep an optic on him. I've got plenty of paperwork to do, I can get on with it up here."

Starscream debated it internally for only a fraction of an astrosecond before acquiescing. "All right. Just… TC?" He hesitated in the doorway. "If any alarms start going off? Let the nurses deal with it, all right?"

Thundercracker quirked a curious brow, as if to say _you think they might?_

"I'm pretty sure they will. They have been the last orn or so, and fairly regularly, I don't know why things will change just because I've gone. He's got a _lot_ of fine calibrations to do." Starscream nodded, although it looked like he was nodding mostly to himself. "They've primed his homeostatic regulators as well as we can but it's going to have to be him that fine-tunes it. He's under-compensated for the smaller body and overheated twice already, and that's with the physios trying to help him, the big baby."

"Emphasis on 'trying'?"

"Of course." Starscream shook his head, despairingly, and put up his hands. Distorted, friable mutterings followed him up the stairwell until he was out of earshot. "Never seen a mech so bad at taking friendly advice…"

Thundercracker smiled and shook his head. _You're hardly one to talk, Starscream_, he thought to himself, moving to the window to glance down into the cubicle. It wasn't entirely unreminiscent of watching a sparkling learn to interpret its gyroscopes and remain upright, he mused, watching his wingmate swearing and threatening his unsteady, stiff-legged way across the room, followed patiently by a much larger pinstriped green physiotherapist.

He caught Skywarp's hostile glare, and wiggled his fingers in a little wave, hoping to be reassuring; Skywarp wiggled his middle finger in reply, and stuck out his tongue, but the overt hostility disappeared from his gaze. In spite of all his complaining, Thundercracker was inclined to think that he probably _was_ enjoying the attention.

0o0o0o0o0o0

Crunch time arrived all too fast.

Thundercracker stood in the corridor for a good breem or two, just out of sight of Skywarp's door, rehearsing his reluctant words in his head. How _did_ a mech explain something like this, anyway? That yes, you _have_ lost near on three thousand solar orbits of your life, and you're never going to get back, no matter how much you whine about it? It could wait, surely, until they got him home and comfortable? Starscream had already voiced the opinion that they should tell him gradually, in little Skywarp-size pieces, fending off any active questioning with white lies to the effect that they were 'still working on it', and finally reveal the truth when there was no other option.

But then, that wouldn't help the whole trust issues they already had, would it? Painfully obvious that the teleport was still distrustful of them, if he found out they'd been keeping other things – and pretty damn _important_ things – from him…?

No. It had to be now. Thundercracker pinched the prow of his nose, trying to stave off a pressure-headache; his friend wasn't going to take the news well, and his own coolant lines had already over-pressurised in stressed anticipation.

If the dull scuffmarks on the floor were anything to go by, Skywarp had been pacing back and forth up the length of his room for a good number of cycles already, when Thundercracker finally summoned the courage to go and talk to him. The newly-black teleport looked up, hopefully, at the sound of the door; if experience counted for anything, Thundercracker figured he'd probably been told not to sit down unless he wanted to smear his new basecoat before it bonded properly to his plating, and was now _fidgeting_. So the dark jet might spend _most_ of his life as a walking dustbucket, the prospect of being repainted and starting to look like _himself_ again had inspired a little Starscream-esque vanity in him. _I'll keep myself looking neat until you've got a nice shiny topcoat on, then I can go back to accumulating my own personal dustcloud._

"TC!" he greeted, with a cheerful grin, arms spread for emphasis. He had a curiously matt look to him, all black and brushed chrome, almost as though he was sporting some new radar-invisible look. "Look! I'll soon be me again."

"Uhm… hi, Skywarp. That's great." Thundercracker let the door drift closed behind him, with an awkward smile. "Glad you're feeling better... Uh. Listen, I came to talk to you about something-"

"You're gonna let me leave?" The dark Seeker almost jumped on him, bodily.

"…uh, no. Not yet." Thundercracker fended him off for just long enough to avoid getting dark streaks on his pale chassis. "That's for the physiotherapists to decide. I just... look, I need to _talk_ to you for a bit, all right?" He gestured at the berth. "Park your aft for a minute, eh?"

Skywarp eyed the mattress, warily. "But I'll smudge-"

"Please, Warp... just-"

"All right all right." Skywarp sat with a small flump, making the temperature monitors bounce. "What's so important you need to talk to me about it _right now_, before I come home?"

"Well..." Thundercracker settled a little further along the berth, just out of reach of the dusty-looking fingers. "I've been talking to Screamer. He's, uh… been trying to work out how you ended up here."

"He's worked it out?" Skywarp's wings perked and he sat up a lot straighter. "Excellent! I knew he would!"

"Well, he's getting there. Got a better idea, at least-"

"So you can send me home now? Is that why they've not finished my repaint yet?"

The awful _hope_ that had suddenly kindled in his friend's face made it so much harder to get the words out. "Uh-… Well, uh… actually, no."

"But soon, right?" Skywarp shuffled closer on his aft, eager. "In a few orns, or something. Right?"

"Uh-... no. Not soon." Thundercracker steeled his resolve and managed to force the words out. "Not ever."

"…what?" For a moment or two, Skywarp just stared, as though frozen in place, looking for a sign his friend was being stupid. When the sign failed to materialise, he visibly deflated; his wings sagged dramatically, his face fell, and for several miraculous seconds, he was totally, utterly silent. "You're joking," he managed, at last, flatly. "I've gotta say, your sense of humour really _sucks._"

Thundercracker vented over-warmed air in a sigh, and tried to work out how to word it in a Skywarp-friendly way. "Starscream says you didn't move _through_ time, you just... well... stopped moving forwards with everyone else. You've kinda been in stasis for the vorns you were missing."

"TC-... how could I have been in stasis _mid-teleport_? I was _just me_, up there. I teleported, I rematerialised, bam, job done. I _stayed conscious_, for frag's sake."

"…from your point of view, sure. That-… that cold sensation you mentioned?"

Skywarp nodded, curtly, just the once.

"Screamer says he thinks that was actually several thousand orbits worth of dormancy."

"But my _clock_ would have been running-!" It sounded like Skywarp wasn't sure if he should be angry or despairing; he managed to keep his tones quite even, but his words _wobbled_, unhappily.

"Not if you were in stasis when you weren't fully materialised. Your chronometer ended up in that… quantum limbo, for want of a better description… just like the rest of you, it _couldn't_ run. Which means…" Thundercracker drew a long stabilising pulse of cold air through his core, and braced himself for the storm. "We can't send you back. You're here in this time, with us, and you have to _stay_ here, moving forwards at the same speed we all do, forever. We can't send you back. It's physically, temporally, scientifically impossible."

"_You_ _sneaky, lying blot of purge, how fragging __dare__ you_!"

Thundercracker threw up his hands to fend off the black dervish that attacked his throat, all claws and noisy fury; had Skywarp not been trapped in that reasonably inflexible new frame, he'd have probably succeeded in tearing through at least a dozen connectors already.

"You stole almost _forty vorns_ of my life, you bastard!" Skywarp's words were already spiralling upwards in pitch, growing discordant and almost ultrasonic in rage. "Forty _vorns_! And you _don't even care_!"

Thundercracker put the berth between the, not that it made much difference. "Of course I-"

"Leave me alone!" For once in his life, the ability to find an appropriate insult had failed him; instead, Skywarp pelted the other Seeker with whatever loose objects he could lay his hands on – data-readers, monitoring tools, temperature regulators.

"I just-"

"_Leavemealone_!" The words came out uncomfortably close in timbre to a shriek of pain, and a heavy toolbox chased the blue mech out of the door.

The sizzling static Thundercracker could hear in the background broke his nerve. He staggered unsteadily away down the corridor, unwilling to listen as his wingmate tore up the room, or the wrenching, despairing sobs that accompanied the chaos.


	9. Chapter 9

**Future Tense - Chapter Nine**

**Disclaimer: **As ever, author neither claims nor intentionally implies ownership of the 'Transformers' brand, or any canon character or concept herein, who are copyright 1984-present Hasbro/etc and used with much love and respect to their creators.

* * *

Rather than trust a true-blue Autobot like Resector with his personal frequency, Thundercracker had planned on lurking in the relatives room until he got the all clear to go back and try talking to Skywarp again – and as ever, a certain aquatic councillor dumped a whole payload of spanners in his turbines. Waveguide seemed to have developed the capacity to sniff out the worst possible time to cause a stink, and then kick off about something completely trivial.

In response, Celerity volunteered a little of her off-time to "sparkling-sit" the reluctant patient. She claimed she had nothing better to do, and, well… while he suspected it was a bit of a white lie? He wasn't about to grill her for information and end up having her retract the offer. Besides, it'd save him some headaches in the long run, because no doubt his favourite councillor would use his absence to throw his considerable weight around and generally wreak havoc among his staff. The quicker he could nip this little problem in bud, the better.

He finally returned – emotionally exhausted, and frustrated, anticipating it all to flare straight back up in his absence – to find the big femme had parked up in one of the big chairs in the foyer, and apparently gone dormant through the continuing inactivity. A data-wafer dangled precariously from her slack fingers, and the surface of the low table in front had sagged alarmingly under the weight of her heavy heels. Well, at least that proved nothing had gone terribly wrong _here,_ in his absence.

Thundercracker shook his head, amused in spite of his tiredness, and pinged one of the bristly antennae that spread from behind her left blinker. "This is 'keeping an eye on things', is it?" he teased, as her optics flickered and she hastily flopped her way semi-upright.

She garbled an apology that was barely discernible through the crackle of bootup distortions, and got up faster than her drowsy gyroscopes could keep up with; a second of arm-waving later, and she was back on her aft, and on the floor this time. "Vigil-… said wake if anyth-…?"

Thundercracker put out a hand and helped her regain her feet; this time, she managed to remain upright. "It's all right. Nothing's happened." He managed a tired little smile. "Thank you for staying."

Celerity smiled and shrugged, sheepishly. She mumbled something out of which "didn't really _do_ a lot" was the only bit that came through particularly clearly, optics going embarrassedly bright, then about-faced and made a hasty exit before he could challenge her further.

The blue jet watched her disappear with a bemused sort of good humour before turning into the maze of pale corridors, to see precisely what his distressed wingmate had got up to (and more importantly, damaged beyond any hope of repair) in his absence.

His first few footsteps on the polished tiles echoed like gunshots in the quiet hallways. Thundercracker winced; quiet movement was clearly _not_ what his hollow heels had been built with in mind, and for all his aerial grace, _tiptoeing_ was somewhat beyond his capabilities. He continued his way down the corridor with an awkward, hesitant stride to minimise the noise he made, thankful that Skywarp _wasn't_ watching because the mech would take the rise something merciless.

In spite of all the noise, Vigil seemed completely oblivious. He'd pulled his chair up to the door and scrambled to stand on it, trying vainly to peer through the little window into the room. If the lack of immediate response was anything to go by, all his attention was on the contents of the room, to the exclusion of pretty much everything else.

"Vigil…?" Thundercracker prompted, hoping the smaller mech would at least respond to his name.

Thankfully, the anaesthetist glanced around and finally noticed him. "Oh – hello, superintendent. Is everything all right?"

"I was just about to ask you the same question." Thundercracker gestured to the door. "I'm assuming you managed to slip him some knockout drops."

"Hah, if only. No one could get close enough to sedate him. We had to just let him exhaust himself." The small mech reapplied his optic to the window. "I can't see him moving about any more, so I guess he's blown himself out."

"Is it all right if I go in to see him?" Thundercracker peered over Vigil's head at the little window; the fog of scratches made it hard to see more than a few abstract blurs.

Vigil gave him a despairing look and threw up his hands. "If you want." He dropped back to the floor and tugged the furniture out of the way. "He's been quiet for a breem or two, so I think he's done smashing the place up." He palmed the lock, and the door slid silently open. "Comm me if you need anything."

Thundercracker gave him a grateful pat on the shoulder, then squared his wings and slipped quietly sideways through the door.

…then winced, in spite of his best effort not to. Not one solitary piece of equipment had escaped the carnage, resulting in a layer of electronics that formed a treacherous, slippery carpet of loose wires and broken casing over the tiled floor. One of the supports for the berth was broken, leaving the heavy-duty structure slumped down in one corner, its waterproof cover torn into ribbons. Long, angry gouges marred the walls, streaked with black and grey undercoat that by now would have bonded irreversibly with the smooth plasterwork. The polymer-coated window was broken into an impressive spiderweb of cracks, bowing dramatically outwards, but had somehow remained in place in spite of the weight of Skywarp's fury against it._ …It's gonna take a good few credits to put this lot straight_, his subconscious reminded, unhelpfully.

At least the lock on the door had contained the destruction within the room. Resector had intentionally left Skywarp's weaponry physically disconnected – and with good reason, Thundercracker realised. He couldn't help wondering if the surgeon had contemplated this happening, or had simply done it because the Autobot instinct to not have a fully armed ex-Con at large in the hospital was still too strong.

Skywarp himself sat on the lopsided berth in the middle of the wreckage, staring forlornly out of the window over the district below, huddled up in blankets, silent now that his rage had blown itself out. He reminded Thundercracker of a newly-eclosed sparkling, lonely in his own plating – in a way, he guessed it wasn't too far off the mark.

Thundercracker lowered himself carefully to the ruined mattress, next to him, partly to avoid spooking his friend and partly in case the damaged furniture wasn't up to carrying both of them. "Skywarp…?"

Skywarp studiously ignored him, lips compressed into a thin, angry line, his gaze fixed into a half-heartedly hostile glare out of the window.

"Cybertron to Skywarp – hey? You in there, Warp?" He waved his hand in front of his friend's face, carefully ignoring the traces of moisture still clinging around the dim optics. "Come on, look at me? …please?"

The teleport refused to look up. "Go away. I'm not talking to you guys until you send me home," he said, hollowly. His vocaliser still creaked with vestigial static, like a poorly tuned radio.

Thundercracker swallowed a sigh. "We're trying, Warp. We're just-… it's really difficult. _Screamer_ doesn't even understand how it happened, not properly. I'm not sure we-"

"Then I won't be talking to you ever again." The dim crimson glare slid fractionally sideways for an instant. "S'a shame. I _used to_ like you. Guess everyone's just reverting to type, huh. You can take a mech out of the 'Cons…" His words dwindled off into disappointed, muttered invective.

Thundercracker pinched the prow of his nose; it was hard to keep the tired exasperation out of his voice. "You _are_ home, Warp. I promise." He set a hand on his friend's shoulder, gently. "You're just… a bit further forward than you should be."

Skywarp jerked his shoulder, trying to dislodge the unwanted hand. "No I'm not. I'm in some… parallel fragging universe, where Thundercracker's a lying, cheating blue purge-valve who'll say anything to trick people into doing things they don't want." The pale brow furrowed as Skywarp's glare knitted itself deeper into his face. "Your Skywarp obviously swallows up all your lies with no question, over here, huh?"

Hurt, Thundercracker couldn't summon much of a response. _Well, at least he's still talking_, he consoled himself, guiltily taking his hand back. "…I suppose at least that's better than a parallel universe where Thundercracker doesn't give a frag about his bro."

"Stop calling me that." Skywarp at last looked up, glaring but without much heat. He waved a finger for emphasis, instead. "I'm not your stinking _brother_. Bros don't _lie to each other_ like that."

Thundercracker met his glare, sadly. "I didn't do it to hurt you, Warp."

The corners of the teleport's optics had tightened again, and his lips pursed. "Screamer did. Useless, noisy fragger-"

"No he didn't."

"…I mean, gotta teach Little Stupid a lesson for trying to be smart _somehow_, huh. Bet he's been looking forwards to this the whole time I was gone-"

"Oh, come on, Warp_…_ You seriously believe that?"

The hesitation, reluctant shrug and little sidelong flicker in the crimson optics betrayed the dark jet's feelings.

"Starscream missed you just as much as I did. Maybe more, I don't know. He's just…" Thundercracker waved his hands, trying to conjure the words he wanted. "You know he can be like a brick when it comes to his feelings, and he's been depressed, lately."

"Oh big deal. When _isn't_ he griping about something-"

"-_I mean_, clinically depressed. Maybe worse than I was." Thundercracker sighed. "He's just got no _oomph,_ any more. He's tired, but he doesn't rest. He's not really interested in anything, any more. Just… works, and when he isn't at work he holes up in his office at home. I can't get him to go get help. I think he's of the opinion that if he does go and see a doctor, it's as bad as publically admitting he's struggling to cope." He studied his wingmate's pale face, reassured to note that the angry tension had begun to fade from his pinched expression. "He's looking a smidge more perky already, you know. Now we finally found you."

Skywarp's gaze slid sideways. "You're just saying that."

"No-o, I'm being honest."

"For a change."

_Ouch_. "…yeah, about that-…"

"You guys could have been honest with me in the first place, you know." Skywarp tucked up his stiff shoulders, uncomfortably, and huddled his blankets a little closer, as though to protect himself. "I know I probably wouldn't have actually _got it_, but you could have at least tried to tell me first, instead of just making slag up to trick me into it."

"We were worried about how you'd take it – both of us. We were… scared, I guess. That you'd get stubborn about it, dig your heels in and refuse to do anything, and insist on staying in that damaged, hurt old shell for the next vorn or two, until you literally fell apart." Thundercracker nudged wings. "I should stop being self-indulgent about it, because I know it's hard for you, I just-… you've been gone so long. It's been really hard to keep going for us, too." He set his fingers back on the dark shoulder, awkwardly. "I can't even explain how glad I am to have you back, at last. And properly _you_ you, not just another stupid trick." He managed a sad, twisted little smile. "Feels like no matter what's happened in the past, since you vanished, it'll all be fine now, because we're all back together."

Skywarp mumbled something incoherent, and dropped his gaze to study his fingers, quietly. Weird, delicate little silver fingers – fingers that still felt like they belonged to someone else. "…I'm just so fragging _lost_, TC." His wings had drooped even lower. "Even being slagged by some fat-aft Autobot didn't suck this much." With a quiet sigh, he finally gave in, and flopped sideways into his friend. "I wanna go home," he reminded, unnecessarily.

_Of course, _Thundercracker realised, belatedly. _For a mech so used to knowing exactly where he is… We might _tell him_ he's home, but from his point of view he might as well be on some alien planet. All those conflicts are probably making things countless times worse. _He mantled an arm across his friend's shoulders, making sure keep his static field as smooth as possible.

"I was just getting used to living here, out of the war and one step up from an empty, and bam, it's all changed around again," Skywarp went on, in the continuing silence. "I'm stuck in this cheap-aft plastic refit, feeling like a stiff, sore party balloon, with you guys bullying me. I've missed out a great big chunk of my life, the end of the war and my brats growing up, and to top it all I don't even know where I _am, _not properly, not any more. You've moved everything around and my maps don't match up. I feel like I'm running around with half my senses yanked out."

"Well, we can fix that, no problem. You can come sit in my office and look at all the maps you like, soon as you're out." Thundercracker promised. "The station server's chock full of all the most up-to-date information you could want."

Skywarp gave him an ever so slightly reproachful look. "See, _that's_ not helping my brain either," he reminded, quietly. "I mean-…" Sigh. "We've been a unit for thousands of Vorns, and I don't even know _you guys_, any more. And don't tell me I do," he elevated his voice before Thundercracker could protest. "Because frag, you're sure not the guys I knew before I fell off the planet."

"We haven't changed _that_ much. We're still the same, inside-"

Skywarp snorted a laugh, but it was a sour, disbelieving sound. "Aw, come on, TC. We were three lost ex-Cons who'd just managed to scramble our way out of a friggin' _war_, struggling to get used to this new life, and _not_ spontaneously fall to bits or kill anyone." He gestured with a hand. "Last time I saw _you_, the shrink had only just decided you weren't gonna try and top yourself. Now you look all... official. Important. You've probably even got _Prime's_ underlings saluting you, now."

"...well, that _did_ take a very long time to get used to-"

Skywarp forced a grim smile and shook his head. "See? And you say you guys haven't changed."

Thundercracker remained silent. It was hard to come up with a rebuttal for that.

"And Lucy – a friggin' _doctor_? That's a mindfuck in itself, right there." Skywarp threw up his hands, despairingly. "How in Pit did she get to be smart enough for that?"

"She's mostly good at finding her patients," Thundercracker soothed. "She's got your speed, and your head for direction. The rest involves being enthusiastic with a welding torch."

Skywarp watched glumly out of the window as distant aircraft drew bright trails through the sky. "…I promised I'd teach her to fly, TC."

"She was in good hands. We shared the responsibility, me and Screamer. I did most of it, but when he was in an amenable mood he showed her some more complicated manoeuvres." Watching the dark wings droop a little further, Thundercracker added, quietly; "for what it's worth, she was pretty set on waiting for you to come back so you could teach her. She stayed with her feet planted firmly on the dirt for almost twelve vorns."

Skywarp sighed grimly. "I'm not sure if that doesn't make me feel worse," he admitted. "My impatient little brat changes the habit of a lifetime, and I still let her down." Beat. "And then I was pretty damn _mean_ to her, too."

"She knows you didn't mean it." Thundercracker ran a hand gently down the teleport's wings. "And if I know Lucy as well as I think I do? She'll forgive you."

Skywarp leaned into the comforting touches. "I missed out on seeing both of 'em grow up."

"You didn't miss a whole lot. Mostly… whining and tantrums. Or whiney tantrums."

Skywarp hesitated for a second before wondering; "You sure that's not Starscream you're thinking about, there?"

Thundercracker glanced down at him, and the carefully inscrutable face, and decided that yes, the dark jet _was_ trying to lighten the mood and be vaguely humorous. He gave him a squeeze across his shoulders, and chuckled softly.

For a while, a peaceful quiet reigned, the two friends watching clouds move slowly through the sky outside, content in each other's company.

It was hard to know what thoughts might be buzzing through Skywarp's head at the best of times, Thundercracker mused, and after a shock like he'd just endured? Goodness only knew what he was thinking about. (Actually, that was probably a lie – he was probably thinking mostly about "how to get home". The schemes he was cooking were likely every bit as outrageous as normal, though.) Still, it was reassuring to note that the new wings had stopped trembling, the prickly field had smoothed out, and he actually looked somewhat relaxed.

"…TC?"

"Yeah?"

Skywarp gave him a long, _lost _sort of look before finally speaking, quietly. "…can I come home yet?"

That the physios would raise Pit if his friend self-discharged, Thundercracker had no doubt, but the blue jet was confident he knew the basics of what they'd teach Skywarp – Pit, he'd been through it all himself enough times! "Sure. Soon as you get that shiny lurid purple topcoat in place."

"It's not _lurid_," Skywarp argued, but there was a tiny flicker of hope in his voice at last. "Purple's _stylish_."

"…it's lurid, Skywarp. We can see you coming a mile off…"

0o0o0o0o0

Exactly as predicted, the physiotherapists were _not_ happy at Skywarp's announcement that he was leaving, but the teleport got support from an unexpected quarter. Resector loudly announced that the flying nuisance couldn't go quick enough, for his liking, and after a couple of final structural tweaks, very nearly carried his patient down to the repainting suite himself.

…aaaand now he was in one functioning whole, all painted up in the right colours, polished and shiny, and on the point of finally _leaving_…? That one last step out the door and out of the clinic? Felt horribly final. _Pass those doors, and you never go home._ He hesitated on one leg, pointing his toes out into the corridor. _You accept this, and you accept it all. _

"Did I miss a spot...?"

He shot a glance back over his shoulder. "Huh?"

The artist waved her sprayer; small droplets of purple gloss spattered down from the nozzle to mix with the black already marring her red exterior. "If I missed a spot, I can give you another quick spritz."

"Oh, that. Uh. No." _How did a mech explain something like this without sounding stupid? I'm scared to leave, in case they forget I don't belong here._ "S'fine. Just... preoccupied." He forced a smile. "Thanks, I guess."

The low _tok tok_ of his heels alerted Thundercracker to his approach long before the two could see each other; the blue Seeker was already up on his feet and waiting expectantly for him.

"Ha." The pale face broke into a toothy grin. "Welcome back, Skywarp."

"Pfsh." Catching a glimpse of his reflection in the big decorative black glass panels lining the main reception, Skywarp hesitated to examine his new look properly for the first time.

Ok, he admitted to himself, reluctantly, head perked, turning first one way and then the other. It wasn't _so_ bad. He looked like… well… like himself, really, but after walking through a hall of mirrors. Slightly skinnier, slightly leggier, with finer wings, a narrower chassis, and less cockpit. Actually, that probably wasn't a cockpit at all, because there was no space behind it – so it was mostly an access window. He figured it made sense, after Screamer had harped on about efficiency, making provision for passengers in spite of probably never needing to carry them seemed… counter-productive?

Just felt really odd, looking in a mirror and not seeing _himself_. It was the part of getting a new alt that he'd never got used to in the past, and this was no different. The new datasets he was operating under felt awkward and wrong, and he had to work hard at just not involuntarily rolling his databases back to something that felt _normal_.

"Well?" Thundercracker prompted.

"Well… what?" Skywarp met his friend's gaze via his reflection.

"Well, what do you think? Now you're up and about and actually wearing it?"

Skywarp wrinkled his nose. "I dunno. I still feel wobbly." He swayed about from foot to foot, for emphasis. "These alloys are all too light. S'like you filled my tanks with helium, or something."

Thundercracker laughed and gave him a slap on the shoulder. "Well you won't float off, if that's what you're worried about."

Skywarp wrinkled his nose, dubiously, folding his arms and trying to affect a good old-fashioned Decepticon holier-than-thou smirk. "I feel like a dork." To his dismay, he looked more like an uneasy sparkling in his first alt mode. Puffing out his chassis and closing his hands into fists didn't help. "I _look_ like a dork. When does it stop feeling like I'm in someone else's body?"

"You'll get used to it pretty quickly, so long as you stop fighting the dimensional primers they gave you." Thundercracker smiled, ironically.

Skywarp poked out his tongue. "Voice of experience?"

"Ha, if only you knew. I had to go through all this nonsense four times, before Screamer finally gave up trying to design something as fuel-efficient as he wanted _and_ with trilateral symmetry."

Skywarp gave him a blank look.

"Errr, triangular. Like we used to be," Thundercracker corrected himself, and the blank look vanished.

"And he made you go through it _four times_?" Skywarp echoed, brows arched. "If he'd said I had to go through this any more than _once_, I'd have told him to go stick it up his-"

Thundercracker interrupted before Skywarp could get _too _vulgar. "I know _you_ would have," he snerked, giving him a playful elbow. "I thought it was only fair to take my turn as the… the 'guinea pig'. He used _himself_ the first half dozen times, until he worked out that he couldn't do _tweaks_ as easily as he wanted. Secretly?" He tapped his nose, as though imparting a terrible secret. "I don't think he wanted to succeed, then be unable to replicate it for himself."

Skywarp snorted a laugh, then frowned. "What's a guinea pig?"

Thundercracker was already heading for the open main doors. "We're going to miss all what's left of the orn's sunshine at this rate."

"No, seriously, TC. What's a guinea pig?" Skywarp chased him across the foyer, trying not to look too awkward – although he couldn't have looked _that _bad, he figured, because right in the periphery of his vision, he caught a little cluster of staff hastily turning back to their work, trying not to make it too obvious they'd been ogling. He felt his lips curve ever so slightly upwards. _See? You still got it where it counts._

Thundercracker stood at the head of the long flight of steps down to the road. "You'd really rather have me discussing Earthly pets with you instead of getting a bit of wind back under your wings?"

Skywarp stepped out onto the stairs, and drew cool evening air through his venting. Okay, it _did_ feel kinda nice out here. Soothed a bit of the prickly heat in his core. "Iiii guess it can wait."

Thundercracker nudged wings. "Let's go for a fly, eh. Blow some of that dust out. Bet you've been going crazy, stuck on the ground all this time."

"Ha." Skywarp elected not to mention that well, he'd been kinda distracted, of late. "You trust me not to crash this new frame you all spent so many credits on getting for me?" He paddled his feet on the spot, hesitant; it was a longish flight of steps, in front, and it'd hurt like Pit if he fudged it and fell.

"Sure." Thundercracker grinned. "C'mon, we might be 'useless, wibbly Neutrals', now, but we're still Seekers – right? Best of the best."

"Ha, right." Skywarp bared his denta in an uneasy grin, the expression not mirrored in his optics. All the flight protocols were in there, and he could see _how_ things were meant to work, it just... well... what was the phrase, believe it when I see it? Just more _feel it_ than _see it_, because he'd seen Thundercracker flying, and...

"I'm gonna let the side down, aren't I," he observed, glumly. "Hello ground, this is nose."

"You are not. Going. To crash. I promise." Thundercracker soothed, a hand on his friend's shoulder. "No-one else has – not even any of the inexperienced guys we've been digging up in Vos – so why'd it be different for you?"

"Because they're not stupid?"

"Oh, stop being a wart." Thundercracker rolled his optics. "None of your flight calculations have changed, it's just a little bit of the mechanics. It's not like you need to worry about transforming yet – just get used to how it feels in the air."

"Since you snatched me out of the claws of the physios, I'll probably strain something, anyway," Skywarp agreed. "Pit, the fewer chances _they_ get to jump around on me, the better." He glanced down to examine his heels, and their (weedy) little thrusters. "So how do I do this, anyway…?"

"Well, not with _them_. The bulk of your thrust comes from your wings, now," Thundercracker explained, launching himself gracefully into the air with a little _whoosh_ of cold air. "Your thrusters are more just for direction."

"Right." Skywarp engaged his vanes, cautiously, running a low current across the surface. The feel of cold air being dragged across the surface reassured him; boldly, he ramped it up the power a little, and finally managed an enthusiastic (if ungainly) lurch into the air. _Ha! It works._

"See? _Easy_." Thundercracker grinned, pleased. "Told you so."

"Yeah, yeah." Skywarp vibrated his vents in a raspberry, concentrating on not-stalling.

It was… easier to get used to than he'd thought it was going to be. His wingmate was right – it was mostly the origin of his thrust that was different – although the urge to use the silly little thrusters in his heels took some squashing. A lighter frame meant crosswinds had more impact, but then even the experienced Thundercracker was getting buffeted a little by the playful breeze that threaded its way down the streets.

Cresting above the rooftops, Skywarp finally got his first good look at 'home'. The sinking sun had begun to cast everything with an unrealistically-romantic amber glow, and a solitary flier – _Lucy?_ Skywarp wondered, not quite wanting to ping it and see if it was her _just_ yet – had threaded the sky with brilliant contrails. A lot of the derelict old buildings he remembered had vanished, replaced by large open spaces just waiting to be built on, and those that remained standing had been re-clad and refurbished, tidied into shabby but inhabitable structures. In the distance he could just about see a handful of new residential zones, the low-lying areas of building work probably designed with vertiginous groundlings in mind.

"What's the percentage, then?" Thundercracker wondered, gliding alongside. "How much of your maps match up?"

Skywarp frowned, thoughtfully, and shook his head, quickly surveying the ground he could see. "Not much. It's mostly that stuff has _gone_, you know? There's a load more buildings on my maps than this."

"A lot of the structures were unsafe. Better to knock them down, before they fell down on someone." The blue jet agreed, rolling elegantly with a crosswind. "Bits were already dropping off them, every time the wind blew. It's not like losing them has made any difference, haha. Just neatened the place up."

"I guess, if you say so. Place looks…" Skywarp hesitated, trying to think of the word he wanted.

"Good?" Thundercracker prompted.

Skywarp looked askance at him. "_Infested_." He curled his lip. "What _is_ the deal with all the green smeltery, anyway?" He waved a careful arm at the closest residential block, between which two trees had been planted in enormous pots; they shivered and flickered their leaves in the breeze.

Thundercracker had to resist the urge to roll his eyes. "Starscream's master plan, supposedly. He's trying to work out a way of harnessing the way plants capture sunlight, so he can use it to help rectify the energy crisis. As a side benefit, they're helping improve the air and stabilising the ground." He spread his hands. "Most people just see it as a little bit of extra colour in the district."

"You're telling me you _like_ having the stupid bits of green fluff around?" Skywarp gave him a glare. "It's like... Day of the Triffids, or something. And that's _ignoring_ all the bits of waste matter they drop everywhere."

"Oh, I don't know." Thundercracker shrugged, amiably. "It's… calming, I guess. And yeah, people seem to like 'em. The leaves are easy enough to sweep up. Plus it hides some of the worst derelict bits, makes the place look less broken."

"Just makes it look like we're being invaded, instead. Fantastic. Figures _you'd_ like it." Skywarp bravely nudged wings, and managed to completely unbalance himself, stalling dramatically and having to scramble to catch himself before the next building could.

"Yeah yeah, just because _you're_ a classless amalgam of spares..." Thundercracker dipped his wings and began his descent. "Here we are. You ready for a drink?"

"Primus, am I ever..."

The three-storey property they were now approaching was set a few strides back from the road, among a cluster of similar buildings – with one notable exception. It looked like it had once been two smaller houses, but the central dividing wall had been knocked down, and a portion of the upstairs floor removed to make a single very large open living space. The solid roof and the bulk of the front wall had gone entirely, over the open central section and the personal rooms on either side, replaced by an enormous skylight made of clear, tough crystal to keep the planet's weather at bay, with a tree in a big pot standing towards the rear of the atrium, its finely divided leaves stretching up in a salutation to the sky. A mezzanine floor ran around three sides, with individual rooms off to the left and right.

Skywarp couldn't help his smile; designed by Seekers, for Seekers. If you couldn't get high up, you made things as open as possible. _Must get an awesome view of the stars, of an evening._ "Nice pad," he observed, genuinely. "Verry nice. Kinda surprised that you ain't slumming it with Sepp, any more, though."

"Ah, they had to downsize, what with her illness and all." Thundercracker swung his feet up, and touched delicately down on the square of bare land in front of the giant glass window. "This works better for everyone. Plus, she's less likely to trip over us."

Deep in concentration, and trying not to wobble too dramatically, Skywarp landed with a half-deliberate inelegant thump, staggering into his fellow jet. Well-practiced, Thundercracker managed to steer him away from the window before the dark mech could crash into it, and instead through the well-disguised doorway into the main atrium.

The tree at the far end immediately claimed Skywarp's attention. "You've even got the smelt indoors?" He gave the tree a flick with a stiffened finger. In response, it folded its leaves up, as though alarmed. "Screamer and his friggin'… _green stuff. _There's gotta be better ways to take over the planet." He leaned back on his heels and gazed up at the way the top leaves brushed the glass ceiling. "Where does he get them from anyway?"

"Skyfire sends them, mostly."

Skywarp double-taked. "What? The... that dorky shuttle Screamer's always trying to kill?"

"Yeah, we get a little shipment from one place or another about every two orbital rotations," Thundercracker confirmed, with a little nod. "They... occasionally share a couple of words over the long-distance transmitter about them, mostly jargon. I try and keep out of it, heh."

"Aw, man, Screamer." Skywarp cackled, quietly. "The mech sends you flowers and you _still_ won't talk to him? AND you keep the present? That's so _cheap_."

"Yeah, no. Not touching that one." Thundercracker snorted, and jerked his head at one of the rooms in the rear of the building. Looked like a domestic storage facility of some sort. "High grade?"

The teleport felt his pumps cramp pleasantly at the thought.

Thundercracker laughed, recognising agreement in his friend's face. "Something cool and restorative, coming right up. Go park your aft, Warp, I'll be right back..."

After doing just one single investigative orbit of the giant indoor-outdoor lounge, Skywarp decided detailed investigations could wait until morning. He cast himself down on the closest couch, tiredly, and dumped his heels onto the low table in front. Nice pad, sure. Looked... expensive. Comfortable. That slinky, fashionable refit he now wore, too. Stiff and sore, sure, but he felt sharper than he had. More alert.

And he'd never felt more lost, and alone, and uncomfortable.

So much had happened that he'd just missed completely, he might as well have been buried in Vos with all the other jets that had waited out the interminable stretch of the war. He pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to bleed off a little pressure in his cortex, but his head was already throbbing. It was like waking up from complete stasis, and finding the world had moved on without you. Like? Frag, it _was_ waking up from a coma. Product of a long-dead society, still living in the distant past, dumped down in a world where nothing was like he remembered. Every time he thought he was getting to grips with it, along came another punch from his blindspot. _I just... don't belong here._

"You're not going to rest somewhere more comfortable?" A voice spoke by his shoulder, and he glanced up to watch Thundercracker set a tall flask carefully down on the table close to his elbow; condensation had already covered the brushed chrome with artful squiggled of moisture.

"I've been laying flat for like, _at least_ the last hundred orns, TC. Kinda wanna just sit and look at the stars for a bit." _See how much they've moved since I last saw them._

The blue Seeker nodded, and pinged a command at the lights, dimming them down almost all the way out. A thousand extra stars emerged from the dark vista overhead. "Pretty awesome view, huh."

Skywarp managed a small smile. "No energon for you?"

"Nah. I'm fairly well topped up. Just have to do a full defragment before morning, as I've got a meeting with a boat to look forwards to." Thundercracker curled his lip, involuntarily.

"I'll give him a kick in the skidplate for you. I'll find something high to drop him off."

His friend at least managed a smile. "Waveguide's bad enough already, without feeding his paranoia. He needs no excuses whatsoever to wind his grapples tighter around my budget." Sigh. "Guess I'll just sit and listen to him rant, for a bit. He likes the sound of his own vocaliser even more than Starscream..."

Skywarp had already sunk into a torpor with his face turned up to the stars by the time Thundercracker decided it was about time to go and get his own thoughts straight. He sighed and propped his head on an elbow, listened to the low hum of his friend's fans, cycling quietly in near-stasis. What he'd give to work out what grim thoughts had been churning in the teleport's dark helm. That Skywarp was still far from happy? Didn't exactly take Cybertron's greatest brains to work out, but it would take a sharper brain than his, right now, to pry the exact details out of him.

The door in the rear of the property rattled, and he looked up just in time to watch Pulsar stagger drunkenly into the wall and stare blearily back at him for an instant, before overcompensating in the opposite direction. She promptly dove headfirst into the back of an armchair. "…ow."

"Lemme guess; you went out to celebrate, your sibs out-drank you, and abandoned you in a bar." The blue jet peered down behind the chair at the heap of white plating in the doorway.

"_I_ left _them_, actually. I said I was comin' home to see Warp." In spite of her efforts to the contrary, Pulsar seemed to just be tying herself into a more tangled knot of limbs. " 'm totally-... ngh, sober."

"Course you are. Lightweight." Thundercracker scooped her up out of the doorway; Starscream was due home at any minute and he'd only end up repeating what the femme had just done – although it would have been noisier, and probably with added violence.

"Donchoo make fun of me, flyboy." She waved a threatening finger at him; the effect was ruined by the obvious fact that her optics were focused on some point over his shoulder instead of his face. "I jus' have little tanks."

"…like I say. Lightweight." He grinned and plopped her down on top of Skywarp. "If you came back to see him, you better get to seeing before your fuel-handling knocks you out. It'll take you a while to integrate all that excess you've got sloshing around in you."

Skywarp had startled awake at finding his lap suddenly occupied. "What the-"

As if by way of explanation, Pulsar vocalised a stuttery purr and snuggled better against him. "...mmm, missedyou." She rubbed her cheek against his chest.

Skywarp stared down at her for several long moments. "What?"

"Overindulged." Thundercracker threw a thermal foil at the pair. It unfolded in flight and flopped untidily across Skywarp's legs. "I think she and her siblings went out to celebrate getting you back, at last."

The teleport snorted and snagged the blanket in the tips of his fingers, tidying the sprawl of limbs across his lap a little better before draping it over them both. "Since when do bikes need an _excuse_ to get hammered." The small body was a prickly but oddly comfortable presence in his arms.

Thundercracker chuckled. "Yeah, yeah. G'night, you two." He gave his wingmate's shoulder a squeeze. "Sleep well, eh?"

Skywarp leaned his helm sideways, resting it against his friend's hand. Quietly, he commented; "...thanks, TC."

"It's nothing. I'm just glad you're back, Warp."


	10. Chapter 10

**Future Tense - Chapter Ten**

**Disclaimer: **As ever, author neither claims nor intentionally implies ownership of the 'Transformers' brand, or any canon character or concept herein, who are copyright 1984-present Hasbro/etc and used with much love and respect to their creators.

**A/N:** …and we're back! Hopefully for a bit longer this time. For those who remember when I first started posting this, I have "refreshed" the first nine chapters a little. I have also begun uploading on AO3 (linked in my profile).

* * *

_…is that a _tree_ above my head?_

Rousing out of dormancy to the unexpected overhead vista of blue sky and leaves, Skywarp floundered through the confused murk in his head for only a few moments before deciding that going in search of the answers to the latest question could wait until he was properly awake.

Thinking too hard while he slowly worked his way through that still-unfamiliar bootup sequence would be more likely to result in his blowing a fuse at the effort, anyway. First time he'd not had hospital staff on hand to help if he loused anything up, and he didn't precisely want to wind up straight back in the emergency department and the arms of the very staff he thought he'd escaped from.

_Right. Awake now._ He continued staring._Why_ _is there a tree_ _above my head_?

_Flowers_, a little voice reminded. The accompanying flicker of humour was just enough to kick-start his memory. Of course. He'd finally succeeded in leaving his least favourite place in all Deixar, and come home – whatever _that_ meant, any more. Could a mech really call somewhere 'home' if he'd never seen the place before?

He straightened a little in his chair, and flexed stiff shoulders and wings with a grunt of discomfort. His autorepair reported back that it had adjusted cable tensions overnight again, still seeking the optimum balance of strength versus flexibility, leaving him somewhat over-wound. _Maybe TC's right and I should lay off going dormant in silly positions._

He directed his attention down to his lap, which was still occupied by a foil-wrapped bundle of limbs that a moment or two of tweaking revealed to be a very-offline policebot. "Nice to see you're glad I'm back, too," he griped, flicking her antennae. "So glad, you couldn't even stay awake."

Pulsar gave an automatic-sounding little questioning little _chirp_ of feedback, but didn't actually manage to rouse far enough out of dormancy to even flicker her optics.

Someone had been along while they'd been offline, at least. A tall silver flask stood just past his thrusters on the low table in front, where he couldn't kick it over by mistake, with a datapad covered in glowing gold text propped against it. He reached out a hand, but the little collection only proved itself way out of reach without him getting up. He zoomed in on the writing instead, deciding to evict Pulsar from his lap when he was a tiny bit more _awake_.

Although unsigned, the note was clearly from Thundercracker. _I've let Pulse have the first and second quarter off work_, Skywarp read. _In case the pair of you want to go and get your maps updated. Figured you'd appreciate someone holding your hand in case you get lost. _

Skywarp snorted a sour laugh. "Yeah. Thanks, TC."

_Assuming either of you actually make it to the land of the living before noon, that is_. _I have a battle with Waveguide until the middle of the orn, but I'll be in my office afterwards. Did I say battle? I meant budget meeting. Come find me after? Otherwise I'll be forced to hunt you down._

There was a strange, subtle element of teasing threat about the last statement, and Skywarp had no doubt at all that he meant it. He just wasn't sure if being hunted down by a battle-fatigued new-official-Thundercracker was going to be fun.

Certainly wouldn't be fun if he hadn't got his fuel-tanks topped up – how _did_ a mech expend so much energy, doing… nothing? His hyperactive autorepair had been busy all night, making little tweaks here and there to his wings, his thrusters, his gate, his flight protocols, as though even it didn't trust him not to spectacularly nosedive into a junkheap again.

His depleted tanks won the battle for his attention. Sensing that she wasn't going to be moving under her own power any time yet, Skywarp finally bundled Pulsar up in the foil and heaved her bodily onto the neighbouring couch; she gave a barely-intelligible mutter that sounded suspiciously like _not time to go to work yet_ and rolled tighter into her wrappings, but otherwise remained miraculously offline. Obviously _had_ been a heavy night, after all. He couldn't quite restrain the little smirk.

"Guess you won't be wanting any of this, then," he said to the room, uncapping the flask. He sniffed warily at the vapours; his diagnostics confirmed it was just plain boring standard-grade fuel. _They can't give you _all_ their high-grade, Warp_, he chastised the little disappointed flicker. _Not yet, at least, and the challenge of finding it for yourself will be more entertaining anyway. _

He rocked himself forwards and let momentum carry him to his thrusters. He wobbled a little while his gyros caught up, but at least he didn't go straight back onto his aft, this time.

"TC? Staar-screeam? Yo-oo, where are you guys?" He broadcast a ping around the property, but didn't get a response. "Have you guys all gone and left me on my own again? Pit." His wings drooped a little, with a sigh of hydraulics and shifted air. "You know there's a difference between giving a guy space to think, and _completely abandoning_ him, right?"

_Some brave new world THIS was, where his bros were more interested in __work_, he thought to himself, sourly, ambling slowly around the building and cataloguing where everything was. At least as Cons, he and TC had few responsibilities off the battlefield. Mainly, scrape Starscream up off the wall/floors after another spat with Megatron, and get him to Hook, pronto.

He snorted at the irony. Just got OUT of the cons, and he was already reminiscing about the 'good old days'?

_You were the one that wanted out, remember? At least the guys made something of themselves_. Skywarp pursed his lips and tried to ignore the pang of discontent. _You and your bad choices might have dragged 'em along, but _they_ made it work. If you hadn't fell off the planet, what _would_ you be doing now?_

His conscience chimed in, quietly – _probably still mooching off them_ – he ignored it with difficulty, concentrating on mapping. Pretty big property, for two singletons (and a tree), what else was here? Most inner doors remained open, maximising the light streaming through the property – as if the giant skylight wasn't enough. On the ground floor right-hand side, a machine could step down into the bathing facility – nice rough floor and solvent-resist tiles, big wall-mounted felt buffing wheels, plenty of soaps and brushes and other sundries. Skywarp wrinkled his nose and decided the room probably wouldn't pop up on his radar that often.

The top-floor rooms with their full-length skylights looked like personal recharging stations; the two slightly more private rooms in the rear had already been claimed by his wingmates, if the glyphs etched subtly into the door controls were anything to go by. Skywarp smiled into his energon; he liked a challenge.

The room at the front left appeared to be where Pulsar was staying, if all the little bits of police detritus scattered around – databoards, replacement decals, official briefings – were anything to go by… but it wasn't her room. He ran his thumb over the little glyphs on the door controls. _Skywarp_, they said. He bit his lip and looked away, guiltily.

At last, right in the rear left downstairs corner of the property Skywarp found the room he'd been looking for. The sign on the door looked like someone had "liberated" it from an old laboratory. It dictated, in heavy red lettering, "Caution; incendiary materials. No entry to unauthorised personnel". Underneath it, someone with familiar neat handwriting had added, in black marker that time had faded into a dingy grey; "this INCLUDES YOU, Footloose" – and an "AND YOU, SKYWARP" in fresh black pen in the very bottom corner.

Skywarp managed to find a small smile, poked briefly at the room with his teleport and felt the disorienting tingle of a subspace baffle – no surprise there. He peeked around the door; he wasn't sure what the incendiary materials were, but guessed it probably referred more to the scientist in residence than anything he was tinkering with.

Or rather, the scientist not in residence – the room was empty.

"Screamer?" Skywarp prompted, hopeful that the baffle's frequency had maybe just messed up his earlier transmissions, and inched carefully onto the hallowed grounds, careful not to dislodge anything delicate with a stray wingtip. "You about?"

A reconditioned _Vinculum_ supercomputer sat clinking quietly to itself in the corner as it worked on some challenge its owner had set it. Another small plant sat under a fume hood at the centre of a tangle of mismatched equipment and energon refiners, illuminated by a daylamp that seemed to suck all the rest of the light out of the room. Otherwise, the place was empty.

Skywarp huffed air through his vents. The one person he particularly wanted to see appeared to be the one person that didn't want to see him back. He hadn't seen Starscream at all, since successfully escaping the clutches of the physios – it looked like he was going to continue not-seeing-him for a while longer. _Way to make a guy feel wanted, Screamer._

He sensed his scarlet wingmate was avoiding him for the same reason he himself was looking for him. _Explain it better to me _precisely_ why I can't go home_? Obviously didn't feel up to explaining it in sufficiently short words.

Intentionally dragging his thrusters, Skywarp departed the unoccupied laboratory, abandoning the empty flask on a shelf of clean glassware as a sort of calling card. Even with the big expanse of sound-muffling leaves in the rear of the atrium, his footsteps sounded awfully solitary as their echoes followed him out.

He headed down to the front of the property, and leaned his entire body against the front window to watch with his arms dangling as the occasional machine passed by on the road just past the perimeter fence. _Now__ what are you going to do, huh?_ He let his head _bonk_ down against the glass, the impact making the entire skylight ring softly.

Almost forty vorns, gone. Wrapping his processors around it wasn't getting any easier, the longer he spent thinking about it. All that time, spent in limbo while the world changed around him. They could tell him he was home for the _next_ forty vorns, and he wasn't entirely sure he'd ever come to accept it.

He barely knew his brats. Had rejected Footloose out of hand, and hadn't seen Slipstream _at all_. Almost like the pair were avoiding him. Not that he could really blame them. Not even quarter of a vorn old, when he lost his grip on time and space. A moment of idiocy, a single bad decision, and he'd vanished for pretty much their entire lives.

_Couldn't hack it as a Con, and now you made a hash of things __out__ of the Cons, too._

Without any input from his conscious processors, his mind drifted back to the little fuzzy critter that had scampered over his foot, down in the bowels of the Rift. It had leaped from the downed shuttle, drawn him down into the Pit, and trapped him there, to do… what?

Skywarp leaned his weight back off the window and onto his feet. Had the things in the cave caused the fault in his teleport? Had they intercepted his jump, somehow? And instead of succeeding in… well, whatever they were trying to do, sent him careening through time instead?

If Screamer couldn't work out how to send him back, maybe _they_ knew the secret. All he had to do was find one, and interrogate it, right?

"Come on, Pulsar, time for work!" he boomed, startling her awake. While she was still floundering, alarmed and disoriented and struggling to get her gyroscopes to rebalance, he scooped her bodily off the chair and teleported them both _up._

_Whoa,_ _bad idea Skywarp; you're not exactly practiced at getting around in this outfit just yet-! _Rematerialisation was followed in short order by _fall_. His directional thrusters spluttered in protest at being asked to carry his entire weight.

_Not them, not them! Thrust in your _wings_!_ He hastily engaged his vanes before he built up too much downward momentum.

A second or two of wobbly freefall later, he found his balance and his flight evened out. "There we go. Nothing to it," he said, out loud, mostly for his own benefit.

"…I really wish you'd _warn me_ before you did that," Pulsar scolded, shakily, face pressed against him so she didn't have to watch the ground flash past below.

"Warning you gives you time to dig those little fingers into somewhere sensitive, and all of me is sensitive, right now. I don't wanna fall out of the sky because you're _tickling_ me."

"Doesn't feel like you need any help with that."

He managed a little snicker. "What are you so worried about? It's not like I'm gonna drop you." Pause. "Even if I _did_, I could still catch you. I think."

She thumped a fist against his chassis. "Trust you to miss the point, _as usual_."

The Rift wasn't actually that far from 'home', and they covered the distance in less than a breem. Skywarp touched down on the flatter ground on the Deixar side of the chasm, and inched carefully closer, across the slumped, fractured stone that slipped and shifted under his weight. Hard to believe that before the war, this had been a busy manufacturing zone, all factories and warehouses and refineries – abruptly abandoned as the fighting swirled around either side, then slowly swallowed up by the widening seismic mouth that chewed its way through the middle. It created a hundred thousand tiny bolt-holes in which fuzzy gremlins could hide away.

For several seconds, he could only stare reluctantly down into the shadowy abscess in the rocks, involuntarily tensing his arms around Pulsar. He felt her fingers tighten subtly in response – she could probably sense his unease, rippling disharmonies through his static field

_Come on,_ he chastised._ It's not like it's gonna blow up again. It's just rocks._ He squared his shoulders, straightened his wings, and dipped down into the gloom, heading for the position burned forever onto his memory. The shadows intensified around him, as though he were slowly descending into a sea of ink. (Or back into the Pit. That's not shadows, that's the walls closing in on you.)

The ground loomed up in his radar, bringing with it a sense of spark-deep relief there wasn't much further _down _to go. He stretched his feet out in front of himself for a landing, then skidded several yards on an unseen patch of rubble, teetering precariously forwards, but somehow managed not to go over on his aft.

"A'right, Squeaks. We're down," he murmured, awkwardly reluctant to raise his voice in case the echoes betrayed him, stooping forwards to let his passenger climb shakily down.

"Down where?" Pulsar glanced around herself, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other on the treacherous floor. "The Rift? What are we doing here? …Skywarp?"

Her voice fell on deaf audios; the teleport had far more important things to be paying attention to.

Time hadn't diluted the painful black wounds on the shattered rocks, where the explosion had incinerated them. Even down here in the dark bowels of the Rift, the damage somehow looked a more intense black than the surrounding shadows – a lurking monster, all jagged, rotted teeth, waiting for another chance at swallowing him. In the very distance, past the shrieking mouth of the unblocked cave, Starscream's borehole let a skein of perfectly-placed sunlight glitter down onto the rocks. It reminded him a little of the mysterious lights that had attracted his attention in the first place.

_Come towards the light, little Seeker, and let us return you to the Pit you emerged from._

A phantom of remembered pain ran a hot knife up through his still-tight wing joints, and he had to concentrate hard on just not clenching his fists.

Pulsar hung back a couple of wingspans behind him. "I can't believe you're already thinking about going back in there," she half-scolded, reluctantly. "You're only just back with us, Skywarp."

"I'm not going in," he defended himself, with a patiently exasperated voice. "Just getting a look. All right?"

_You said that last time,_ he reminded himself. _Then the world blew up_.

She muttered something uninterpretable and folded her arms, trying to puff herself up and look a little larger. "Well if I think you even _smell_ like you're thinking of going burrowing again, I'm going to drag you back out by your wingtips," she threatened.

"Cool down a moment, will you?" He leaned forwards as far as he dared, poised on tiptoe to increase his reach a little, as though those few inches might make all the difference. "There was things in here," he reminded, straining to peer into the dark. "Warm, fuzzy little alien bug things, looked like. Not machines."

"It was a very long time ago. They're probably all dead."

"You think?" Skywarp glanced back at her for a suspicious second or two. "You're just saying that."

"Well, true, I don't want you going in there – but that's not _why_ I'm saying it. Squishy creatures don't live very long, do they?"

"I'm _not_ going in. I just wanna know what happened-"

"I can tell you what happened," she said, softly, and he actually turned to look at her. Her white plating and pale blue optics made her look like a disjointed ghost in the shadows. "You disappeared out of everyone's lives, and almost broke all of us." She closed the gap to his side and claimed his hand, firmly. "Don't make us all go through that again."

"Pulse-…" Skywarp's lips compressed down to a frustrated line. "It's _just rocks_, down here. Nothing's gonna happen. I just…" He threw his arms into the air, struggling to find the words he wanted. "Want to get some context. From my perspective, it only happened a few orns ago. I'm flailing around in the dark, right now, and I can't keep on being so _lost_."

She glared back, hurt. "And what do you think being down here will do to help you get un-lost? Apart from to, to… worry everyone? You vanished for a _lifetime_, Warp! And less than ten orns after we finally get you back… you're back _down here_, where _everything went to the smelter_."

For a moment or two, they just glared at each other, optics blazing, as though trying to intimidate the other into backing down.

Skywarp broke the staring match, turning away with an irritable flick of his wings. "That's exactly the problem. I've lost a whole lifetime, and I don't know why! This is the only connection I have with everything that got left behind. My only proper link to _me_." He waved his hands in midair, trying to conjure up the words he couldn't find. "I need to understand it. I need to figure out how this finished up with me… _here_." He shuddered at a memory of those soft feet running over his wings, way down in the dark, overheating guts of the planet. "I know those fuzzy things had something to do with it. I need to find them, and ask."

"We didn't see anything living when we were digging for you."

Skywarp shook his head, lips pursed. "TC's already said you weren't looking for them. You all kinda had more important things to do than look for gremlins you guys don't even believe existed." He fidgeted half a step closer, bracing one hand against the heat-smoothed rocks and leaning a tiny bit closer into the darkness before losing his nerve and backing away again. "I know they were there."

Pulsar vented a tiny sigh. "Can't believe I'm saying this," she muttered to herself. "All right. What can I do to help you find context, so we can get out of here?"

Skywarp quirked his head to one side. "What?"

"I know where we archived all the scans, all the data we accumulated while we dug. I don't mind helping you go through it all, so long as you tell me what you're trying to find." She gestured towards the sky. "Can we go now?"

He turned his biggest, soppiest, most appealing crimson optics on her. "See, don't think I don't appreciate it, and all, but… if you were still the noble little Autodork you _used_ to be, you'd offer to just go in there and have a little snout around for me."

_Damn. Trapped by my own offer_. "That wasn't what I said." She glared up at him, struggling to maintain her wavering resolve. "I'm not going burrowing around in the dark because you're obsessed with those clumps of windblown dust."

"But you have little lights." He groped at her chassis until she growled and swatted his hands away. "You're better adapted for it, you can see where you're going. And you're little. You don't get claustrophobic. And if _you_ don't go, _I'll_ have to and Pit only _knows_ what'll hap_-_"

"_Fine_." She closed her mouth with a snap and lit her headlights. "But if the ceiling falls in on me, _you_ have to come get me. And I mean it!"

He put on his best, most inoffensive smile, and clasped his palms together. "I _promise_."

"Yeah yeah, sure you do." Warily, she edged her way into the tunnel. The bright pinpoints of her lights only emphasised how dark and ruined everything else was – thick black carbonised plaques on the walls, and reluctantly shiny specks of metal where the shuttle had vaporised in the fireball and splashed molten plating up the rocks. "…I don't even know what I'm looking for, you realise."

"Anything strange," Skywarp suggested, optimistically.

"Funnily enough, I'd made that connection all by myself."

Skywarp watched the little lights get steadily more distant, unable to keep from fidgeting, or to shake the awkward, surging sensation in his pumps. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and all that, but for all his bluster, he really wasn't enjoying being down here, among the shattered rocks and crumbling spires of stone. Any second now – he had to keep stopping to get a good look at them – the walls might just fall down on his head.

_If the ceiling does fall in, there's no way you're going to be able to dredge up the courage to go rescue her – you know that, right?_ He shushed his conscience, continuing his restless back-and-forth pacing. _Quit doing that. Ceiling's not gonna fall in unless you make it fall in. _

The continuing silence from Pulsar's side wasn't helping. "Well?" he prompted, voice echoing back at him off the rocks. "Found anything yet?"

"Can you stop yelling?" Little blue and white lights turned to glare back at him. "It's destabilising my audios."

Skywarp cupped his hands around his mouth and increased his volume a little. "I need to be sure you can hear me!"

Pulsar's swearing could only just be heard under the echoes. "So use your comm., you useless fragger! Or I'm coming back right now."

After a second or two tussling with his conscience – woolly-sparked though she was, his friend might eventually act on the threat, if he kept winding her up – Skywarp resumed quietly pacing, albeit with a slightly lighter step.

Eventually, he noticed Pulsar's lights dip lower. -_found something?_- he chivvied.

-_pinger does work, then_- she shot back.

He ignored the jibe, reassured that she was still operating under her own power and hadn't been jumped by the fuzzy aliens. -_what found_?-

-_fluff_-

Skywarp frowned. -_fluff_?- he challenged. -_define_-

-_little short bits of fibre. just fluff_!-

-_bring some for me_?-

-…-

-_please_?-

-…why?-

-_want to see_?-

The pause was so long, he could almost see Pulsar casting her gaze despairingly skywards. -_all right. better appreciate_-

-_always._ _much love_!-

-_fragger_-

-_I promise_-

-_that's not what… never mind_-

"Remind me _why_ I'm feeding your conspiracy theories with this nonsense?" Pulsar challenged, at last emerging from the cavern with her hand held as far away from her body as possible, a matted ball of brown hair held gingerly in her fingertips. Backlit by her headlamps, it looked rather like a malevolent toupee.

Skywarp huffed a patient sigh. "It's not a conspiracy theory." He held out his hands. "There was definitely something down there, I remember it walking on my wings. This might help me figure out _what_, if I can get Screamer interested enough to figure out what it is."

"But it's just _fluff_, Skywarp." She relinquished the handful of fibres into his curious hand, wiping her palm across her plating in a futile attempt to get the sticky strands to detach. "More of the same nasty biological rubbish that blows down here off Starscream's plants on the streets up top. It's like sand, but worse – it gets into fragging everywhere, then! _Decomposes_."

Good to know he wasn't alone in his dislike of the stupid green things. Skywarp brought the ball of fluff up very close to his face and inspected it closely, but it refused to give up its secrets.

She watched him for a moment or two. "What if Starscream can't work out what it came off, either?"

The dark Seeker's features spread in a grin. Combined with the crimson highlights cast by his optics, it lent just a hint of madness to his pale face. "Then I've _definitely_ got him interested. Either way serves me juust fine."

Pulsar had to swallow the sudden inexplicable urge to back off a step. "All right. You've got what you wanted," she asserted, more bravely than she felt. "Can we go now?"

The expression that replaced the infernal grin clearly said _I thought you'd never ask. _"Didn't think _you'd_ be the one getting fidgety for being down on the dirt, Squeaks." He offered an arm and gave her a step up off his knee, and waited until she'd tucked close and latched her fingers into convenient air-vents on his torso before finally taking off.

"There's _down_ and then there's _under_," she pointed out, indulging in a very close-up study of his dark enamel. "I'd rather not be the latter."

"…you and me both."

0o0o0o0o0

Finally alone in his office after a particularly long, _draining _discussion with local government officials, Thundercracker dropped his helm to rest in his hands, and groaned at nothing. His jokey reference to doing battle in his note to Skywarp had turned out to be annoyingly prophetic.

If Waveguide could be counted on for just one single, solitary thing, it was to be as stubbornly inflexible as possible. Normally, Thundercracker could deal with stubborn and inflexible quite easily, by being just as stubborn and inflexible back, but he felt so stretched-thin and fractious, right now, what with Skywarp's surprise arrival and the frantic scramble for how to _deal _with it, it was all he could do to sit quietly and agree to things and not _punch_ the fragger.

Waveguide knew it, knew _why_, and capitalised mercilessly on it, knowing exactly which buttons to press to maximise the response he got. Thundercracker still wasn't precisely sure how much of his life he'd signed away just to get the barge out of his office, but it couldn't have been good.

He knew it wasn't _him_ that Waveguide didn't trust, precisely, so much as his _connections_, namely Starscream. He knew the councillor was happily convinced that the only way to stop the red jet from turning the local constabulary into a replacement army was to _not give them any money_. That if he strangled the budget tight enough, kept everyone running on the very barest minimum, they couldn't skim funds off the top to finance a coup.

It was a good job Starscream had been off doing whatever Starscreams did when trying not to lose their tempers, because this meeting would have ended with attempted murder as the apex piece.

The blue Seeker rubbed his temples and tried to encourage his cortex to depressurise a little. The day _was_ going to end with him shooting something, the way it was going right now. He only hoped it would be something inanimate, when his temper finally found the chink in his armour it needed to get out.

When the door _crashed_ open with no knock, no buzz, not even the smallest advance warning, he knew it could only be someone with familiar red wings, come to pay him a visit. His deputies knew when it was a bad time to disturb him, but Starscream rarely cared for such politeness when he had a burr working its way under his plating.

Thundercracker forced a smile that felt more like a tired grimace, and lifted a hand in a little wave of greeting. "Starscream."

No matter how hard the blue jet was having it, the red one always seemed to be having it _worse_ – or at least, he always made it seem that way. Starscream managed to grunt something that with a little imagination could possibly have been a greeting, but otherwise acted as though Thundercracker hadn't spoken, and went straight to the fuel store.

"Nice to see you too," Thundercracker went on. "Oh, you're just here to drink all my energon? Help yourself, friend, it's not like my day could have been anywhere close to as bad as yours."

At last, Starscream looked up at him, straightening with half a cube of high-grade. "What?"

"Never mind." Thundercracker let his chin rest in his hands. "You gonna share that, or what?"

Starscream looked genuinely surprised, and arched a brow. "I hadn't been planning on it?"

Thundercracker finally found a snort of humour, and held out his flask. "Come on, fragger. Share."

Starscream pursed his lips, but complied. "You could have got your own if you were that desperate."

"Star-… do not underestimate how much I need to punch someone, right now." Thundercracker watched as captured starlight poured from the ephemeral lattice and swirled into the tall crystal flask, all shimmering opalescent colours and crisp, heady vapours. "And you're conveniently close."

His wingmate curled his lip in a small sneer. "Oh, I can tell. In fact, I'd wager _Nightsun_ can feel how prickly your field is, and he's two rooms over." He dropped with a heavy _whump_ into the easy chair in the corner and flicked his wings comfortable.

Thundercracker took a long draught from his flask, and leaned back in his chair, waiting while it slowly integrated. The pleasantly volatile fuel did feel like it cleared his head, a little, encouraging over-wound servos to relax and coolant pressure to ease.

"So. How did it go at senate?" he prompted, not entirely sure he wanted to know; Starscream shot him such a hideously black look in reply that he immediately put his hands up in surrender. "Right. Forget I asked."

Starscream retreated into his cube, muttering soft invective. "I just wish they'd listen to me, the mech, not me, the propaganda ghost from the war. I'm am genuinely trying to _advise_ them, not… trick them into doing things, for a change. Funny though it may seem, I do actually want my home to _prosper_."

"It can't have been that bad if you're not throwing things-…"

"…-any more."

"…oh."

"_Apparently_, mentioning how I was considering standing for election is worse than a full declaration of outright war. I was apparently only tolerable when I was still the attaché for Central Station, and couldn't cause trouble," Starscream griped, gesturing with his cube, then elevated his voice and boomed, dramatically, in a passable mimic of Waveguide's voice: "You're considering letting an _ex-Decepticon_ stand for government? What are you, _suicidal? _Let _him_ in, and the world as we know it will end in an angry fireball."

"You know they're just scared of you, Starscream," Thundercracker soothed. "They're all thinking about what happened when you wanted to be 'elected' to take over from Megatron. Another leader in whom you showed very little faith?"

"That was different." Starscream folded his arms, sniffily, and stuck his nose in the air. "_And_ it was a long time ago."

"He didn't pay attention to your ideas, you always thought you could do better, you plotted political takeovers behind his back…" Thundercracker ticked the points off on his fingers.

"This situation is nothing alike! That… that _floating bus…_ is out of touch with reality, and spreading _unfounded rumours_." Starscream waved a finger for emphasis. "If he seriously thinks I have the time or resources to devote to building an army in our back rooms? He has more faith in my ability than I do."

"Maybe. Probably? I don't know. Elements of his paranoia are fairly justified."

Starscream narrowed his optics, suspiciously. "Go on."

"He's not a great councillor, and certainly not very popular. He was elected during the war, when no-one else wanted to step up, and he's scared people will like you better. Let's face it, you might be a whiny, supercilious glitch half the time, but you do tend to get things _done_, as well. He's probably clinging on to control by his fingertips."

Mollified, Starscream directed his attention back into his energon, swirling it back and forth and watching oily rainbows coil across the surface. "How close did _you_ come to slagging him today?"

Thundercracker held up thumb and forefinger a couple of microns apart, squinted for effect, then mimed the gap getting smaller.

Starscream arched a brow. "Oh, so. Better than usual then."

"Ha ha."

At last, Starscream cast his gaze around the office, realising something was missing. "Where's that useless layabout got to, anyway. I thought he was supposed to be meeting you."

Thundercracker smiled, privately. The scarlet jet might grouse about their dark wingmate, but he couldn't quite hide the lightness about him. Waveguide-induced tantrums aside, he'd not looked so relaxed in... vorns, definitely. "You mean Skywarp?"

"Well, unless you know any _other_ useless layabouts."

"Probably gone out with Pulse. I gave her the morning off, and the pair of them had disappeared when I went home after my meeting to check on them. I threatened to hunt him down if he didn't come find me, but I'm giving him a bit of room to manoeuvre. I know he said he wanted to reacquaint himself with the district, get his maps up to date." Thundercracker allowed himself a small wince. "_Hopefully_, that's what he's up to."

Starscream snorted. "You mean he's gone to reacquaint himself with Squeaky."

Thundercracker smiled. "You _are_ late to the party. He's already done _that_."

"He's only been out of hospital for all of half a breem." Starscream gave his friend a serious glare, and something apparently clicked. "You mean-... when she stayed with him that first evening-" Thundercracker's carefully guile-less shrug seemed to act as confirmation, and the red jet rested his face in his hands with an exaggerated sigh. "Primus. Give me strength. Nice to see that in spite of everything else, Skywarp's incorrigible_ libido_ hasn't suffered for its little jaunt through time…"

0o0o0o0o0

"So what are you going to do now?"

"Eh?" Skywarp put his flask back down on the roof next to him, and glanced sidelong at his friend. "What do you mean, 'do'?"

"Well, instead of following me around like a little lost sparkling." Pulsar had resignedly realised that sitting on rooftops was something she was going to have to get used to again. At least they weren't so high up that it set off her vertigo – just high enough to get a good view over Deixar's quiet main shopping precinct – and so long as she didn't actively look _down_, she actually felt reasonably comfortable. "Get some practice with your refit, maybe? So you don't fall halfway out of the sky after a teleport, again?"

He smirked, smugly. "Oh, you noticed that?"

She elbowed him in the midriff. "I just mean… it's maybe going to be a while before Starscream works it all out and figures out a way to send you back. You know?" She swung her legs, nudging the tip of her pedes at his thrusters.

He kicked back, playfully. "Pssh. I have great faith in my wingmate's incredible braininess."

"Well, sure, me too – but you might still be waiting a while. Aren't you scared you're going to get bored?"

"Oh, please. I can always find _someone_ worth my, ah, undivided attention."

"Yeah, that's what worries me. You only just got out of hospital, Warp, I'm not coming to visit if you go straight back in. Can't you find something, I don't know. Productive? You need to do something that's not going to get you slagged."

"Hrm. To be honest?" Skywarp watched the crowds moving around on the streets below. "I kind of figured, once I'd seen Screamer, maybe I'd go to the library or something."

"…the _library_?" Pulsar couldn't quite hide her genuine surprise – or slight suspicion.

"Hey, I didn't say I was doing it for fun_._" He pouted, disgusted. "It's for a reason. I don't know if Screamer's gonna be interested in believing me about the creatures down there, so I'm gonna root around until I find enough evidence to _make him_ interested. If I have to be kinda imaginative-"

"…completely fabricate something…"

"-then that's what I'm gonna do." He waved a hand. "I just wanna have some real facts that he can't say 'don't be stupid, Warp, slaggoff' about. I want him to pay proper attention to what I'm saying, for a change."

"All that revolting fluff we gathered up isn't enough?"

He shrugged, helpless. "You might be right and it's just stuff that's fell off the trees. That's _guaranteed_ to get me told to slaggoff, 'specially if it makes a mess."

"So explain your master plan to me. Two brains have got to be better than one, especially when neither of them is particularly smart," she offered. "I may be able to help."

He shot her a suspicious look of his own. "Not because you wanna persuade me to drop it?"

A little headshake. "I want to know why the fuzzy things are so important. It can't all just be so you can say _I told you so_."

"Hmf." He didn't sound convinced, but didn't immediately clam up. "Well, I figured, those fuzzy things? Maybe they can send me back to where I belong, right? I know I won't be able to find them on my own, I need Starscream's help, and I need him to be _curious_ so he'll help me."

Pulsar remained quiet, for a moment or two – long enough for Skywarp to figure out her reasons without her needing to say anything.

"See? You're doing it again."

"…doing what again?"

"None of you guys get it." He hunched his shoulders, protectively. "You're all saying you're soo happy to have me back, you're ignoring the fact I just lost a massive chunk of my life. A massive, _important_ chunk. Probably even the _important-est_ chunk!" He sighed the stuffy air from his core. "It's like, the guys are so glad the trine is full again, they're hoping I just… forget about it. If they tell me I can't enough times, I'll give up, sit back, relax into this weird new life, and act like nothing ever happened."

"Warp-"

"If Screamer's right with this old smelt about quantum limbo, I just spent close to forty vorns offline. Forty _vorns_, Pulse. I… Frag." He covered his face with his hand, briefly. "Having trouble wrapping my brain around that. It's like when we crashed on Earth, all over again – except you guys all moved on without me. All the important things happened while I was asleep." Another of those awkward sighs of hot air. "Feels like Primus finally got up off his aft, found a nice sharp rusty bit of iron, and rammed it up my exhaust, sideways."

Pulsar winced, and covered his fingers with her own.

"I'm not gonna sit back and accept my slagging gracefully, Squeaky. Those… those _things_, they dumped me here in the future and I'm gonna figure it out and get them to send me home if it kills me."

"That's the bit everyone's worried about, Warp." She squeezed his hand tightly enough to get him to look her in the optic. "We don't know what those things _are_. They might have been _trying_ to kill you."

He didn't answer.

"And we don't want you to 'accept your slagging gracefully', either. We just… don't want you to self-destruct in your first few orns back with us. It'd be hard enough without you running in ever decreasing single-minded circles, trying to go back. Can't you just take a few orns to get settled?"

" 'Settled'," he echoed, poisonously, and looked away, refusing to be drawn further. "You got Lucy's frequency?"

"Of course. You want to talk to her?"

A little chit of data brushed over his firewalls; he saved it carefully to his central memory. "…I was kinda mean to her, Pulse. She jumped me as soon as I got to the hospital, and I shoved her away." After a beat of silence, he added, more softly; "Haven't seen her since."

"She knows you were scared."

"You mean, she's scared of _me_."

"Of you jumping at her? Maybe. She'd been thinking about what would happen when you came back for a long time; I guess the reality of it was a bit of a spanner in her turbines."

"…what about Seem? He's, uh. Not seen him either. He's still around?"

"Seem is… yeah." Pulsar nodded, slowly, choosing her words carefully. "Little workaholic. Very dedicated, spends most of his time either at work or in dorms."

Skywarp watched her, carefully, reading the tension in the corners of her optics and the way her lips pursed. "He doesn't wanna see me either, huh."

"It's not that. He's just-… He has some… issues." She forced a smile, and squeezed his hand.

"Don't we all."

"I mean it. He found me when the Triplechangers were done trying to get me to tell them where you were." Pulsar's static field flared, briefly, spiking at a remembered pain. "He's not really been right ever since. Go gently with him?" Her blinkers flashed, just the once. "Ugh. Oh well. Guess that means end of breaktime." She drained her flask. "See you later."

"Oh hey, what about me?" Skywarp pouted. "Telling me you're gonna just run off and abandon me, in my hour of need in this strange new world?"

"Well, _some of us_ have work to do."

"Looking after me is work."

"Yeah, and it's _very hard_ work, which I don't get paid halfway enough for." She offered a cheeky grin in response to his exaggerated disgust. "Come on, give me a hand down."

"After those insults? Not a chance." He folded his arms and lifted his chin, and gave her a smug look.

"Fine. I'll get myself down." She swatted him in the arm.

"Oh yeah? Scaredy little bot like you, who blows a fuse just from being upstairs?"

"You gave me plenty of practice at being unnaturally brave." She peered over the edge and visibly winced, before rolling onto her abdomen and slithering backwards over the lip of the roof.

"Watch you don't purge a tank, there, Squeaks," Skywarp called after her, making no effort to unfold his arms.

"You better hope I don't, because it'll be _on you_." She passed the point of no return and a look of transient alarm flickered through her optics before they too vanished over the ledge. "Oof!"

Skywarp leaned forwards to watch her get up and brush grit off her aft.

"Nice try, flyboy," she called back up at him, and thumbed her nose before transforming back to her sleek pursuit mode and speeding away down the street.

Skywarp huffed amusedly and swung his feet, enjoying the breeze that tickled over his wings and revising the rest of the orn's plans. Pulsar had an annoyingly good point; Screamer might be infinitely brainy, but science could be sooo sloooow. By the time he'd discovered all the things he needed to engineer a time machine, Skywarp himself could have changed impossibly much, and far too much to go home safely. _And I'm not going back to sleep until he's got it figured out!_

So, the best plan of attack on the rest of the orn? First Lucy, then TC, then Seem.

Then the library. Pit. It was going to be a painful afternoon.


	11. Chapter 11

**Future Tense - Chapter Eleven**

Disclaimer: As ever, author neither claims nor intentionally implies ownership of the 'Transformers' brand, or any canon character or concept herein, who are copyright 1984-present Hasbro/etc and used with much love and respect to their creators.

**A/N:** Sorry again for the delay, haha. I just thought I'd got my groove back… and my PC decided it wasn't going to play by the rules. (To the extent that I had to buy a whole new damn PC before I could get on with writing. Argh.)

I think I caught all the typos and unintentional unfinished sentences, but my brain has now melted. XD

* * *

Not wanting the little paramedic to either come and jump on him – or worse, run even further away – Skywarp elected not to ping Footloose for a location, after all. Instead, he followed his maps and ambled his way across the district to the paramedic's station, trying to look casual, keeping his fingers crossed that if she wasn't there she would at least _end up_ there at some point.

The walk gave him time to rehearse his words in his head – what in Pit _was_ he supposed to say to her, anyway? _Sorry I thought you were an imposter. I know you've been waiting for me to come home for a whole lifetime, and were… I guess, understandably excited when you found out I was here. Frag, I'd probably have jumped on the guys, too, if they'd been gone as long! I just figured it was a stupid big wind-up, to get back at me for freaking out underground. Big bad ex-Con, running away from a __cave__. How humiliating. But ha ha, no harm done, eh? _

He found his hands had already curled into fists, down by his sides, without any conscious input. He carefully unclenched them, peeling back one finger at a time. _At least __try__ not to look like you're a fraction of a breem away from punching someone._

The paramedics' station wasn't especially difficult to find – a small but functional office tacked onto the west side of Deixar General's back yard, ambulance staff apparently sharing the outside space with hospital employees.

Right now, a small sea of dark green bodies filled the area outside the depot, all looking intently up at the office, where Braze stood on a little flight of steps, evidently giving a briefing of some sort. Footloose was easy to spot – among the various shapes and sizes of crewmates, bikes and trucks and all-terrain vehicles, there was only one set of wings, mostly buried away at the centre front of the huddle. Skywarp could just see the gentle curve of a leading edge, poking out from behind the giant Flatliner.

The teleport retreated back half a step, so the pillar supporting the gate partially blocked him from view, watching and waiting, not entirely sure if it was unease or alarm or just plain embarrassment making him reluctant to enter the yard (because it sure wasn't out of a desire to be _polite_). He knew they'd all stare at him, and he didn't especially fancy having an audience while he stumbled his way across an apology – not exactly his forte in the first place. Last thing he wanted was to have to then apologise for starting a brawl as well.

At last, Braze spotted him, and tailed off midsentence, unintentionally advertising Skywarp's presence to everyone. As a collective, the entire mass of green turned to look at what had attracted his attention. A murmur of curiosity rose from the little assembly.

Skywarp pursed his lips with a glare and folded his arms, puffing himself up, affecting his best "torqued Decepticon" posture until they all found somewhere better to look. -_don't mind waiting_- he pinged at Braze. -_lemme know when done_-

Braze shook his head and flicked an encouraging hand. -_nah, s'aright. pretty much done. come on in_-

While her friends dispersed from their huddle, Footloose remained stubbornly where she was, arms folded, wings mantling subtly forwards, lips pursed and a small glower furrowing her brow. Frightened hostility fairly oozed off her – even at this distance, several paces away, Skywarp could feel her static field intersecting with his own, a storm of electric fireflies. He saw a very definite echo of himself in the smaller femme, reflecting back at him as clear as looking into a mirror.

Skywarp knew she was aware of him – just… studiously ignoring him. If she'd not picked up his name in the murmured comments, she'd have certainly picked up his ident signal at this close range. He put a hand on her shoulder, hesitantly. "Uh-… Footloose?"

She managed a small grunt. "What." Her gaze never flickered from the spot. "Come to shout at me some more?"

"I-… no?" Thrown by the accusation, he had to work hard to keep from responding in kind, swallowing a snap. "You kinda startled me. Wasn't expecting anyone to come jump on me-!"

Footloose muttered something barely intelligible and kept her gaze fixed on the same pebble in the composite stone steps, hunching one shoulder in a shrug. "S'only pleased to see you."

"I know, I-… listen-…" Skywarp rubbed the back of his helm with one hand, frustrated. "Didn't mean to yell at you, Button. I'd barely been out of the garbage for a couple of breems. I had no idea that anything had even _happened._ I…" He threw up his hands, palms up, in an expansive shrug. "I thought it was just a big dumb wind-up to get back at me for freaking out."

_Stop making excuses, you dumb turkey_, his conscience chided. _Just say you're sorry. You could apologise to _Megatron_, but not your own sparkling?_

_Yeah, but that was only to keep him from slagging me, _he defended himself, determined to at least get the last word in.

He vented uncomfortable warm air from his core, and took a moment to rehearse things in his head, and even then, the words threatened to stall in his vocaliser. "…I'm sorry."

It was like flicking a switch. Footloose twisted around on the spot, somehow miraculously avoiding smacking him with her wings, and jammed her head up under his chin, just like she used to do as an infant. He could feel her trembling where she clung to him, her exterior plating vibrating subtly under his fingers. After a second of startled hesitation, he let his arms drift stiffly around her.

"I didn't mean to scare you." The words flowed out of her in one long barely-punctuated sentence. "I just I was so pleased to see you, I assumed you'd be just as excited to be back from wherever you'd been, I never thought you might not even know where you were or not realise you'd been anywhere. And then I was a bit scared that you weren't you, again, because you yelled at me and that was the only reason I could think of that you'd not be happy to see me after all that long time, unless you were angry with us for not finding you sooner because it had been a _really_ long time and you were probably lonely-" She hesitated for a microsecond, to allow a new thought to process. "You're not angry, are you?"

"Nah." He couldn't help smiling, just a little, running his fingers over the leading edge of her wings. At least her bristly field had begun to smooth. "Just wondering if I'll be able to get a word in edgeways in a moment?"

"Oh-! I'm sorry, I just-"

He covered her mouth with the flat of his palm. "Will you stop apologising about nothing?"

"Sor-…" She dithered for a very long second or two and finally came up with; "…all right?"

"Better." He waggled a finger. "Now since when did you get smart enough to be a doctor?" He tapped the finger against the emblem of the medical services inscribed on her shoulder, just above the glyphs that spelled out paramedic. "I always figured you'd end up being a courier or something. Any excuse to fly around the world, double-quick."

She smiled, shyly. "I'm not really smart. Auntie Sepp says I'm a welding iron with wings. That and I'm pretty good at finding people. I always get to them quickest. I keep an ear on all the emergency radio chatter. It was how I figured out, uh-… about, I mean… I spied on Whites." She sighed stale air, quietly, and managed a small laugh. "Every time they found a new flier, I'd come check it out. Just in case. Used to drive Starscream bonkers, at the start. Every time Acid Storm paged him with a new discovery, there I was, getting in the way."

"And then you really did find me, and I just yelled. Welcome home, huh." He leaned his cheek against her smooth helm. "I thought I'd made _you _angry, when you never came back – you never used to let things drop so easily."

Footloose fidgeted and used a thruster to draw awkward semicircles on the dusty ground. "Well, I talked to Ama after she'd come and seen you. She said her and Dack thought you were really _you_ this time, and I-I _would_ have come back to see you in hospital, I just-…" She cringed a little in apology. "…I figured you were probably already pretty freaked out, I didn't want to make it even worse and scare you more."

"Understatement of the vorn, or what." Skywarp actually snorted a laugh. "There's more though, isn't there? Come on, Button. Out with it."

Footloose mumbled her answer at the ground, reluctantly. "Kinda didn't want you to yell at me again, either. It'd been so long since we last saw you, and I never figured you would have been so angry over-… I didn't even know _what_. You were just back, and I'd missed you so much, and you were yelling at me like it was still my fault."

"…your fault for what?"

She refused to meet his gaze. "Not getting you out. Leaving you alone in the dark."

Silently, Skywarp watched her for a second or two. "…the guys better not have given you a hard time about it."

Footloose let her head bonk softly back down against his chest. "_I_ gave me a hard time. I would never have left you on your own if I'd known all this was gonna happen. We could have stayed there, scared but together, until the guys rescued us."

"You were only doing what I told you, for a change." He listened to her chuckle, quietly, and patted her helm. "Then you decided to go off and be an ambulance. What _have_ I done to you, huh? Turned you all weird."

"…weird? What's weird about it?" Footloose looked up to meet his gaze, her head quirked to one side.

"Me and your ama, a thug and a cop. How does that lead to someone going round fixing people?" He lowered his voice and added, honestly; "…totally impressed, though. Seriously. Never thought someone who got a bunch of her coding from me would ever have the smarts to make it in medicine."

The smaller machine couldn't help preening a little, flattered. "Well, I figured… if I'd known how to fix you, or-or… do _anything_ to help, really… maybe I could have helped get you out, and we'd have been safe and you wouldn't have die-… disappeared." She corrected the slip just too late to cover it. Her gaze drifted to her feet, guiltily. "We looked for you forever. Stopping looking meant you were dead and we didn't want to think about that. We'd probably still be looking now, except they all said me and Seem had to stop. Grieve, accept you were gone, and move on, before it drove us mad." She sucked in another of those stabilising pulses of cold air. "But if I'd been able to get your leg off safely? It would have all been fine. We wouldn't have lost you."

"Can you imagine how long it'd have taken them to dig down to us, through all that rock? _Ugh._"

"You could have teleported us…"

Skywarp managed a half-smile. "You know all that woulda happened is that we _both_ teleported into the future. Can you imagine how bad Seem would have been without you there to keep him on his toes?"

Her smile wavered, subtly. "Have you been to see him yet?"

Skywarp caught it – that small flicker of unease in her manner. He shook his head. "No. And going by what Ama says, I figure he's avoiding me."

"Uh. Probably. Kinda." Footloose offered an apologetic pout. "Overwound little workaholic. Needs that stick yanking out from his exhaust."

"Ama said he works hard…"

"Work is ALL he does. Boring little glitch." The smaller jet snorted, melodramatically. "He's no fun, any more, always hanging around with his stupid roomies. Thinks he can singlehandedly remove all crime, from all of Deixar, forever."

"So, you're trying to _fix_ everyone, and he's trying to _arrest_ them all? Nice to see you both found healthy outlets for your frustration."

Footloose laughed and butted heads. "You're being silly."

"And you're turning into Ramjet." Skywarp tried for a wan smile. "…I… sorry I screwed up, Bit."

Footloose rested her head back against him. "It'll be all right," she murmured – quietly, as though scared to tempt fate, "because now you're back."

o0o0o0o0o0o0o

Starscream's oh-so-terrible morning hadn't apparently made too great an impact on his overall mental health. Not only had he taken over the best chair in the corner of the superintendent's office, he was now also comfortably dormant, thrusters resting on a stray crate, head tilted back, fingers laced over his canopy glass, fans humming peacefully.

Chin propped on the back of his knuckles, Thundercracker sat and watched him for a moment or two before shaking his head, amused, and going back to the mountain of reports needing his attention. The pads seemed to be breeding all on their own, because he was sure he'd have noticed someone sneaking in to add _this many more _to the pile. Where did they all come from, anyway.

The door creaked softly into his attention, and he glanced up.

"…guys?" An uneasy face peeked around the doorway, then smiled in recognition. "Oh, hey. Yeah, found 'em." With a final _thanks, Lars_ at someone out in the main office, Skywarp invited himself in.

In his corner, Starscream onlined an optic and arched a brow, but otherwise remained as he was.

Likewise, Thundercracker watched his friend make his wary way across the room. "I was expecting you ages ago, Warp."

Skywarp eased onto a convenient chair, straddling it and folding his arms against the backrest. "Yeah, I know. I was busy."

"Is that the same sort of 'busy' that used to need me to go and apologise to someone for you?"

"You're such a comedic genius, TC." The teleport flicked his wings and made himself comfortable. "Nah, I went to see Footloose."

"…she all right?"

"Shouldn't she be?"

Thundercracker spread his hands and inclined his head. "You've talked to her. What do you think?"

"Mm. Point." Skywarp's lips quirked into a lopsided, somewhat embarrassed smile, and he found an interesting spot on the ceiling to examine. "She looks okay. Now, I mean." He lowered his voice and mumbled something Thundercracker didn't quite catch about why did apologising in public have to be so _difficult_? "She seems to have forgiven me – I think. I hope?" Another mutter followed – _now I just gotta work on the other one._

Thundercracker politely pretended not to have heard. "Productive morning, then?"

Skywarp tore his gaze from the ceiling. "Yeah, it was, actually." He sounded strangely surprised. "Listen, Screamer? I got something I wanted you to take a look at."

Starscream swapped a guarded look with Thundercracker, but otherwise kept quiet, watching as Skywarp produced a small clear glass jar from his subspace, containing what appeared to be a mouldy tribble.

The scarlet jet narrowed his optics, suspiciously, trying not to recoil too obviously in disgust. "What is _that_?"

"I don't know." Skywarp held his jar up in front of his face, as though seeing the hairy mass for the first time, and gave it a little shake. "S'why I brought it here for you to look at."

"Did you get that jar out of my lab?"

"It didn't have anything-… oh, yeah, the '_keep out_' thing." Skywarp gave a casual flip of a hand, waving away the simmering irritation directed at him. "It's all right, I didn't knock anything over."

Starscream gave him a dirty look, but didn't chase it, instead sitting forwards and holding out a wary hand for the object. He gave it a brief but intense visual once-over, close up.

Skywarp watched, intently. "So? What is it?"

"Fluff, so far as I can tell."

The teleport curled his lip and glared. "That's what Pulse said. I kinda hoped The Expert would be able to explain it maybe just a little bit better."

"Have you ever heard of Occam's razor?" Starscream carefully unscrewed the lid and poked the fibres with a finger, grimacing as they adhered to his plating.

Skywarp looked back, blankly. "…Occam's what?"

"Have you considered that maybe it _is_ just fluff?" Starscream gave up his futile attempt at wiping the strands from his fingers against the smooth surface of the seat. "TC, do you have a rag somewhere over there…?"

Skywarp groaned and sagged against his chair, letting his arms dangle and bonking his forehead down on the backrest, dramatically. "It came from _some_where, guys. Fluff doesn't just appear out of subspace, all on its own."

Crimson optics delivered a well-practised withering glare. "If you maybe gave me a bit more information than _here's some fluff to look at_, I might stand a chance at figuring it out. Where did you even find it?"

"Down by your borehole at the Rift."

Starscream gave him an unexpectedly hard look, pausing mid-clean. "You went down the Rift?"

"Well, sure. Just to get a look-"

Starscream cut him off, curtly. "After everything that's happened, and you went down the Rift _already_? You're barely out of hospital!"

Skywarp straightened, insulted, folding his arms. "I'm sorry, I forgot I was supposed to ask your permission to go look at _a bunch of_ _rocks_."

"Did the concept even once flash through your processors that _maybe_ the Rift is a source of some pretty hideous memories, for most of us? And that you… tramping off down there the instant we got you back, like you don't have a care in the world, could be maybe a bit of a fragging… _insensitive_ damn thing to do?"

"Oh, like _you're_ the master of tact!"

"Tact has nothing to do with it." Starscream only just managed to rein in the urge to hurl the jar of fluff at Skywarp's head. "First we nearly lost Thundercracker after that useless pipeline's meddling, then the pair of you had danced a fine line above self-destruct after we got back to Cybertron… then you vanished completely! Do you know how traumatic it was? For _everyone _involved?"

"Do you know how traumatic it was for _me_, finding out I've been in limbo for half my life-?!"

"It was hardly _half-_"

"Well, how about you go hibernate for a few vorns. Then you can get back to me on how I should be responding to it!" Skywarp bounced to his thrusters, fists balled. "In fact, lemme help. Stand still and let me _clock you one on the helm_!"

Both mechs were now on their feet, barely more than arm's length apart, wings hiked, glaring. Chin still resting in both palms, Thundercracker watched them posture and gesticulate, and wondered if he could be bothered to get up and separate them. His sense of self-preservation suggested waiting for them to yell themselves out would be less damaging on his paintwork; he agreed with it.

"Do you know what it was like for your little brats, digging down to you and finding a half a shredded _leg_ from where you couldn't be patient?" Starscream waved an arm, as though torn between gesturing and hitting. "I had the pair of them hanging off _my_ thrusters for-for… several entire solar orbits, at least! Like they couldn't bear to let either of us out of their visual range, just in case we vanished as well."

"Nice to see what you really mean, there, Starscream. Primus forbid you have to look after a couple of scared sparklings. You're more worried about what it's all doing to your reputation – like you've got one of _them,_ any more."

"That is not what I meant and you know it-!"

"Guys, guys. _Please_." Thundercracker groaned into his hands. "Does everything have to be an argument? You know Warp didn't go down there to intentionally be insensitive-…"

"Don't make excuses for him-!"

"…-and you know that if you were in Warp's place, the first thing you'd have done after getting out of hospital would have been to go down the Rift to check things out. He needs to know what happened, just like we do."

"Except I wouldn't have got _into_ Skywarp's situation _in the first place_."

Skywarp pitched a convenient datapad across the office at him, bouncing it off his helm. "How about you come over here and say that?"

Starscream smiled back, with that gritted-teeth sort of sickly sweetness that was the usual precursor to a mech getting shot at, and with a quick flick of the wrist, threw the pad back. Skywarp ducked, but not quite fast enough to avoid the projectile – Thundercracker hastily rescued it. "How about, you follow a direct instruction just once in your life, and I'll think about it?"

Skywarp rubbed his head, sulkily. "I was only looking for you. Figures that it's too much to ask you to be interested in helping me"

"You're missing the point-"

"You're not helping me not-miss-it!"

In his head, Thundercracker counted slowly to ten. "Please, Starscream. Just humour us for once. I want to know what that nasty stuff is, as well – if only so I know to put funds aside for a huge vacuum cleaner."

Starscream vented hot air, huffily, and after shooting horrible glares at both hecklers, turned his attention back on the fluff. "It's biological," he confirmed, at last. "That's about as much as I'm willing to say at this juncture, without running a proper analysis on it."

"Is it off your stupid trees?"

Starscream looked across the room and met Skywarp's woebegone expression; he swallowed the urge to snap a request _for Pit sake could people stop calling them stupid, all the time_. "I don't think so. It's got a similar structure to the biological materials we've found on, ah-… other things."

Skywarp spread his hands, encouragingly. "…you gonna elaborate?" he prompted.

"At the moment, no. Not until I'm sure." Starscream palmed the jar carefully into his subspace, for safekeeping. "I'll need to cross-reference it against the samples I have in storage. It could be nothing. Is probably nothing."

"You are gonna find out what it is for me, then?"

Starscream's brow furrowed into a tired glare. "Well, if I'm going to go feeding your nonsensical conspiracy theories?" A long-suffering sigh. "I want to know that I'm doing it for a good reason. And not just to get you to be quiet about it."

Skywarp remained quiet, although it looked mainly like he wasn't entirely sure if his friend was just being rude about him, and was thinking up an appropriate response.

Thundercracker caught his attention before things could devolve to another argument. "What are you going to do now, Warp?"

"Iunno. You all right if I go get a look around maybe?" Skywarp jerked a thumb at the door through to the offices. "Just get my maps up to date, y'know. And, uh. See if I can snag Seem, who is clearly avoiding me."

The glances swapped between his wingmates were subtle, but Skywarp didn't miss them. _Thanks for confirming it, guys. Not sure I _wanna_ find him, any more._

"Since when do you ask my permission to go snoop around somewhere?" Thundercracker joked.

Skywarp shrugged one shoulder. "Well, you guys are both cops, I'm just a lazy bum. You might not want me causing chaos where it should be 'staff only'."

The blue Seeker smiled, patiently. "Even if we said you couldn't go wandering, Warp, are you telling me you'd break the habit of a lifetime and not invite yourself in anyway? It's not like we can put a subspace lock on the entire building."

"…fair point."

Once the door had closed, and Skywarp's signal faded away, Thundercracker turned to Starscream, and did _that face_ at him; the one that said he was waiting for his wingmate to elaborate on what he was thinking.

"This time? No." Starscream shook his head, firmly. "Not until I've investigated the angles I'm concerned about. Then, I'll talk to you. I don't want anyone jumping to conclusions – yet."

o0o0o0o0o0o0o

As it turned out, Skywarp's maps didn't need a whole lot of updating. Meandering through the warren of corridors, he found the downstairs offices spookily familiar. A fresh coat of paint and few new computer terminals, but that was about the limit of the changes. The usual chaos of half-finished work, official supplies and personal belongings turned the place into the same comfortable warzone he remembered from before falling off the planet.

Right now, the offices were mostly deserted. Open plan and covered in workstations of various sizes, only a few officers were actually at their desks. After a brief glance up to see who it was, most politely ignored the teleport as he edged his cautious way in.

Slipstream was conspicuous in his absence, but then Skywarp hadn't expected him to be easy to track down. Instead, he followed a familiar signal towards a far corner, furthest from the door and near a big expanse of window.

Hidden behind a partition, Whitesides had zoned out at his desk, sprawled out on his chassis in a muddle of empty fuel cartons, bright cellophane candy wrappers and half-written reports. Optics dark, his head lay pillowed against one arm, the other dangling off the desk. If the hum of his air conditioners were anything to go by, he was fine, albeit in a very dormant state. The station joker had apparently been past, too, because each of the bike's long aerials wore an empty candy wrapper, twisted carefully around the stem like a decorative scrunch of ribbon – he had to be pretty deep in recharge for it to have not woken him.

Well, he always said he liked a challenge. Skywarp swallowed a smirk, then curled a finger and gave the bike a stern little _flick!_ on one antenna.

Whitesides sat bolt upright with a start and a noise of surprise, and promptly fell off his seat. "What's-what-… what happened?" Hazy blue optics finally got the big expanse of black plating to come into focus. "Oh. S-sir. Uh. Did-… did you need something?"

Skywarp folded his arms and arched both brows, dramatically. "Who's been keeping _you_ awake when you should be recharging, hmm?" he joked.

The constable produced a wavery smile for him. "Oh, no – n-nothing like that. Just… more depleted than I thought I was, today, heh." He straightened his antennae, brushing off the scrunches of cellophane. "Looking after little sparks really takes it out of you, doesn't it?"

Sounded far too convenient_, _Skywarp considered, but nodded anyway and offered a hand to help him up. "I guess."

"So, uhm, can-… can I help?" Whitesides settled uneasily back on his seat, sweeping some of his muddle into the corners of his desk so he could get back to work (or get back to napping).

"I just..." Skywarp offered a shrug. "Honestly? I was actually looking for Slipstream, but seeing as you were here, I wanted to say thanks."

"Uh… right?"

"I mean, if your little one hadn't spotted me, I'd probably still be out there in the dump, wondering where the frag everyone was and why they were ignoring me." Skywarp poked out his tongue. "Thanks for sounding so suspicious, by the way."

Whitesides twittered an uneasy little laugh, and changed the subject. "You said you were looking for Seem? Can't you just ping him?"

"Uh, well." Skywarp rubbed the back of his head. "I kinda… don't have his frequency, any more? He's changed his signal since I got lost."

"Oh." Whitesides' optics flickered briefly to one side, apparently comm'ing for a location. "He's down in the galley with the other two from his dorm. Probably spouting politics again." He studied his cluttered desk with a strange intensity, avoiding meeting Skywarp's gaze in favour of his reports. "Now is probably a good time to catch him. Once he's off on his beat, you won't see him for dust."

The little flicker of uneasy fireflies in the smaller mech's field piqued Skywarp's curiosity. According to Thundercracker, Whitesides had helped out a lot when it had come to dragging the twins up to be responsible adults – which meant the idea that the bike was _scared_ of the youngling was pretty… mystifying. _Something_ about the thought had made him uncomfortable, though. Maybe it was the idea of _politics_ that made him twitchy.

Recognising that he'd no doubt find out in time, Skywarp gave the bike a friendly slap on the shoulder that almost knocked him clean out of his chair again. "Thanks. Guess I better go see if he'll talk to me." He cycled cool air, squared his wings, and strode determinedly for the door. "Maybe I just need to corner him or something…"

The hollow tramp of walking thrusters dwindled down the corridor for a moment or two, then paused… then grew louder again, and Skywarp poked his head back around the door. "You might wanna get them paint transfers looked at, next time you're down the washracks. People might start asking questions."

o0o0o0o0o0o0o

Finding the officer's mess was the easy part. Picking Slipstream out from the crowd of assorted machines was going to be harder, since none of them resembled the little dark blue bike he remembered. Skywarp hovered in the doorway and frowned at the assembly.

What had Whitesides said – probably spouting politics with the other two from his dorm? Well, three mechs held court in one corner of the hall – compact, powerful machines, midway in size between a bike and a truck – surrounded by a small group of other officers. What they were talking about was impossible to tell, at this distance and over the general hubbub, but they looked fairly animated about it. Maybe that was "politics".

Correction; two of them were fairly animated. The third – an extremely scruffy silver mech with mismatched optics and wonky antennae – had his feet on the table, chair rocked back against the wall, drawing seriously on a flashstick and paying little attention to his comrades. Twinkling coolant vapours curled up from his torso venting. Skywarp crossed his fingers that Slipstream hadn't "let himself go" to quite such a dramatic degree. Plus, he looked far too chilled for a youngling with a stick up his exhaust.

The other two – the two who looked a little more alert and awake – could nearly have been twins. A vivid blue, boldly marked with high-visibility yellow chequers, they were indistinguishable save for the little green lightning bolts inscribed onto the seated one's shoulders. Great. Who should he poke first?

It was the seated mech that first noticed Skywarp's cautious approach, and answered the question for him. "Eh, Scoobs," he drawled, and gestured idly with the corner of a datapad. "Someone here to see you."

The standing blue one turned to glance over his shoulder, and an unfamiliarly intense, near-crimson purple glare met Skywarp's.

"Pit-… I am _not_ doing this here," the mech snapped, in a voice that couldn't belong to anyone but Slipstream, and twisted abruptly out of view with a hostile _slap_ of collapsing air.

Startled (and only just succeeding in hiding it), for a moment or two Skywarp just glared at the empty space his sparkling had just occupied, until a chit of positioning data stung his firewalls. Figuring it was a request – Pit, an _order_ – to follow him, Skywarp did as asked, and chased the co-ordinates.

Slipstream was already pacing when he arrived, out in the empty training yard behind the station, away from prying optics. The excited, happy little mech getting used to his first upgrade had been replaced by a hard-eyed, cynical adult, impatient and hostile – but not with the frightened, defensive sort of aggression that had made Footloose's field so prickly. Slipstream was a spikey ball of good old simple belligerence – if he had been looking at anyone else, Skywarp would have happily pegged them as spoiling for a fight. The meticulous polish and touched-up enamel couldn't quite hide the liberal covering of little dents and scrapes to his armour – a hundred and one battle-wounds, scarred into his exterior like badges of honour. Pulsar had said the little mech worked hard – apparently it involved getting smashed around on a regular basis.

"I really don't have anything to talk to you about," Slipstream greeted, immediately on the defensive, glaring. "So say your piece and leave me alone."

"My-… what?" The little red face inscribed high on the right side of the younger mech's chest was very clear, and very hard to ignore. Skywarp barely got the words out. "Autobot, Seem?"

"After what the Cons did to us, after you vanished into the ether?" Slipstream folded his arms. "_You bet_ I was going to join up. I wanted to make it crystal clear that we wouldn't stand back and let them roll over us, that we weren't just a bunch of woolly neutrals that'd crumble as soon as they waved a gun."

Skywarp had to work hard at keeping his temper level. "'Woolly neutrals'? TC and Starscream seem to have coped okay with it."

"_Now_, maybe." The smaller machine lifted his chin, arrogantly. "It was different, back then, not that you'd know anything about it."

"A little blob of tin whose age is barely into double figures is telling _me_ what _war_ feels like-?!"

"-I was scared, and I was angry, and I felt like I couldn't make any kind of difference. I couldn't think of a better way of saying how much I hated what they stood for, what they were willing to do to us."

"You didn't have to sign up as a friggin' _Autobot_-!"

"I wanted to make a point. That we weren't scared of them. That _I_ wasn't scared of them." One scuffed blue arm waved in the rough direction of Deixar's hospital. "They'd already landed TC and Starscream in the emergency department. They came looking for you next. Apparently, Shockwave hadn't bother telling Megatron and his cronies that you were probably buried under half a planet. Since they had a score to settle with your whole trine? Letting you hide away somewhere and get out of retribution wasn't an option. They didn't care who they had to go through to get to you."

Skywarp remained quiet, digesting the information.

Slipstream carried on in the silence. "Anyone with half a logic relay knew about you and Ama." He curled his lip, scornfully. "Want to find Skywarp? Go 'ask' his femme. Even if she doesn't tell you where he is, it'll get back to him, and he'll come looking for you anyway. Especially if you roughed her up a bit in the process, because Primus forbid anyone scuffs his property around without permission."

Skywarp felt his hands close into tight, painful fists, down at his sides, but somehow he managed to keep them there. All out punching his own offspring, however disrespectful the little brat may be, wasn't precisely going to patch things over between them.

"They didn't believe her when she said you were lost." Slipstream resumed pacing, awkwardly. "_Skywarp? Skywarp NEVER gets lost. You might wanna start squeaking, Squeaky, or we oil that squeak forever._" He folded his arms, although it looked more like a protective self-hug than a hostile front. "They didn't want it getting straight back to you that they were looking for you, so they ran her through a recycling mill when they were done with her. If I'd taken a breem longer to find her, I'd have found a corpse." He pressed the back of his knuckles against his lips, and Skywarp could see him trembling, ever so slightly. "As it was, she spent orns in intensive care. Everything was either crushed, or broken. They pretty much had to rebuild her from the spark up."

Suddenly, Pulsar's comment about Slipstream having _issues_ made sense. If the youngster had found her, broken beyond recognition, bleeding out and dying in a rubbish dump? Small wonder that he'd pinned full blame on the absent parent that had been the real target all along.

Slipstream saw the hurt flash across Skywarp's face. "So, she didn't tell you that, either? No surprise there. I wouldn't trust you not to over-react, either."

"Seem-" Skywarp shuffled his thrusters, flexed his fingers, and threw his hands up in the air with a despairing huff of hot air. "Look, I'm sorry, all right? What precisely do you want from me? It's not like I got sucked into a forty-vorn hole in time and space _on purpose_. You think I wanted to vanish from all your lives? Frag. If I could go back in time and fix all this, I would, without question-"

"It's a little late for apologies, don't you think?" Slipstream cut in, quietly. "Now if you'll excuse me. Some of us have work to do." He crossed an arm over his chest in a mocking salute, inclined his head, and headed for the street exit without another word.

Skywarp just… watched him go.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o

Deixar Central's active evidence store sprawled over most of the two basement levels underneath the station. Behind the reception desk, the officer on duty was busy taking in something in lots of individual bags from pair of constables. Starscream swallowed a sigh of hot air. There would undoubtedly be an endless pile of documentation to fill in before all the bags were safely stowed away and the clerk could dedicate his attention to the forensics lead, tapping an impatient thruster behind the chattering bikes.

Not wanting to waste time waiting around for him, the red jet just hopped neatly over the desk, avoiding clipping anything with a wingtip with a long-practiced familiarity.

The clerk jumped, as though physically prodded with his own stylus, and held out a hand in a clear _wait!_-gesture. "Um, sir? You-you can't just go in there, you haven't filled out the form-"

The red Seeker skewered him on a glare that spoke volumes about his opinion of said forms, daring the smaller mech to finish his sentence.

The sergeant looked like he'd very nearly swallowed his vocaliser. "Never mind."

The evidence store might only contain items for recent and active cases, it was still always full to overflowing. Starscream made his way down one of the long narrow aisles, towards the rear of the evidence store, turned sideways so his wings didn't sweep anything off the over-filled shelves. Right in the back, close to the refrigerant vent, was the locked shelf he had long ago claimed for his own personal use. A little island of space and tidiness in the stuffed warehouse.

After a brief question/answer session with the lock, the clear door clicked open with a soft _hush_ of cold air and a little cloud of vapour. The seeker selected a small jar from the shelf, and held it up in front of his face, next to Skywarp's disgusting 'gift'. The writing on the label had gone dull, after an eternity of sitting near an air-conditioning vent, but was clear enough to identify the contents: _biological residue retained from autopsy AM25.334.23G4K_

Dark lips compressed to a hard, hurt line. Winnower had carefully saved this all up from the autopsy he'd conducted on the second facsimile, after the two remaining Seekers had-… after it had been dealt with. At the time, Starscream hadn't felt personally up to analysing all the remains, trusting the smaller scientist to bring anything of importance to his attention.

Thundercracker's accusation that he'd sneaked the report onto the server a half a vorn late had stung, and granted, he probably _had_ been feeling a little petty at the time, but-… it had taken him a good portion of that time to _write_ the thing. Lots of small sessions, analysing a couple of sets of information at a time, to keep his anger at _how DARE they use their dead wingmate to try and infiltrate their broken trine _under control.

Starscream banished the thought before he could get too hung up on it. He turned his attention back on his samples; the two small bottles of sticky, fluffy residue were fairly identical, except in volume, and age. The jar containing the smaller quantity was a good nineteen vorns older than Skywarp's collection.

Starscream's optics narrowed to fine crimson lines of wary suspicion.

So. There _was_ something here.

He palmed both containers into his subspace, and headed off to evict Winnower from the forensics suite.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o

"How dare he talk to me like that!"

_Here we go again_._ Same old problems, just a different coloured Seeker._ Thundercracker rested his head on one hand, trying not to look as tired as he felt, and watched Skywarp pace back and forth across his office. It was a small wonder he'd not dug a trench in the floor, so far. He'd certainly left a furore of purple scuffmarks on the old tiles, which Thundercracker wasn't holding out much hope of being able to polish out very easily.

"How _dare_ he talk to me like that!" Skywarp stabbed a finger in a point, for emphasis, using the finger something like a weapon. "I used to be one of Megatron's elite. Disrespectful little brat! Should fragging well be _scared_ of me. How dare he treat me like that!"

Thundercracker didn't even lift his head. "Is that really what you want, Warp? Him cowering at the very sight of you?" he wondered, patiently.

"A little friggin _respect_ isn't too much to ask for-!"

"True, but-… you've gotta _earn it_, mech. He's gone most of his life without you, and all he remembers is a mech that was consistently either thinking up practical jokes, who couldn't be serious, or was spoiling for a fight with someone." Thundercracker finally lifted his head, spreading his hands. "Sure, he's a sullen, radicalised little glitch half the time, but he's still a good spark, and a good officer. He just needs you to be someone he can re-learn to respect. And he does still love you – you're still family. He missed you just like everyone else."

"Sure. Believable." Skywarp muttered something ugly and scuffed his toes against a black streak his turbines had left on the floor.

A dark face appeared in the doorway. "T-… sir?"

"Pulsar, just the person." Thundercracker smiled in that tired way he did when at the end of his patience. "Would you take Warp away for something cool and restorative, so I can see about waxing his footmarks off my floor?"

"And don't you treat me like some damn sparkling, either." Skywarp turned his frustration onto Thundercracker. "Since when did you get so fraggin' sanctimonious?"

"Skywarp-… Please. Just go."

As requested, Pulsar directed a prickly, silent Skywarp down to a small but pleasantly busy café on the old waterfront, looking out over what remained of the old harbour. Her three siblings were already there, perched on high stools close to the bar – Whitesides still looked half-asleep, and Surefire leaned around Longbeam to wiggle her fingers at them in a cheery wave, but otherwise they kept to themselves. Pulsar shooed her teleport into a corner, where people wouldn't be so likely to walk into his wings, and fetched two cubes of fuel from the cheerful server behind the counter.

"You could have told me that when you said Seem had _issues_, you meant he's turned into an obnoxious, over-wound, purge-retentive little glitch," Skywarp groused, softly, finally emerging from his sullen silence. "Even _Starscream_ isn't such an angry baggage. And when were you going to tell me he's an _Autobot, _huh? Way to kick a guy when he's down. Your brat's defected to the enemy, oh and by the way, he hates the very sight you, but we thought we'd let you figure that out for yourself. Welcome home!"

Pulsar stayed quiet, for several long seconds, trying to figure out what to say. "…sorry," she managed, at last. "Guess I… didn't really know how to say it. It's been a long time. I thought he'd got over it."

Large purple fingers brushed very lightly against the small femme's right shoulder guard. "You could have told me about this, too," he reminded, quietly. "I didn't realise when you said my former associates had helped persuade you, you meant they'd done it with a garbage compactor."

"I was going to." She tried for a smile but it came out more as an awkward little frown. "Just trying to figure out how. I don't really like to think about it."

"…I know I don't do well with TC's sort of emotional claptrap, but I wouldn't have over-reacted."

"I know. I was more worried about how _I'd_ have dealt with telling you." Her lips spread in a sad smile, trying to lighten the mood. "For the record, I wasn't worried you were going to have a breakdown. I just know how territorial you Seekers get. I didn't want you to leave hospital, and fly straight off to claim your righteous vengeance."

He pursed his lips in a little pout of annoyance, and glared down into his half-empty flask. "Well also _for the record_, I don't think of you as property, Pulse," he pointed out, quietly. "It's nothing to do with _territory_." His voice descended into mutterings that sounded like long-dead Vosian curses.

The building suddenly went strangely hushed – as though a storm was building somewhere on the horizon. Skywarp looked up from his cube to find a big, unfamiliar machine framed in the doorway, staring at him with chin lifted and lip curled, as though a source of noxious vapours was hanging somewhere at chest level.

Skywarp didn't really need to chase for an ident, but pinged him anyway; Waveguide. Just the person he needed to help complete today's trifecta of failure.

The boat wasn't the small mech with a Napoleon complex that he'd imagined. Nor was he the slow, heavy barge he sounded from the way everyone described him. For a boat, he was… attractive, Skywarp had to admit, reluctantly. Tall, sleek, hydrodynamic, mostly silver and pale blue with crisp azure detailing, and intense pale yellow optics. The silver giant had obviously at one point been a surveyor, because he still bristled with analytical equipment.

Waveguide looked away first, with a little sneer, resuming his journey to the counter. Smaller machines moved out of his way, like ice around the prow of an icebreaker. Appropriate.

"Your usual, counsellor?"

"Thank you, yes…"

Skywarp watched him, for a while, optics blazing, listening with only half an audio as Pulsar chattered inanely to him about all the other things that had been going on in their lives lately, trying vainly to fill the uncomfortable quiet and distract him from his black mood – he'd review it later, when he was feeling a bit less narked. The bulk of his attention remained on Waveguide, suspicious hostility making his wings bristle.

Although he wasn't specifically directing the words at his eavesdropper, Waveguide didn't bother lowering his volume to a more private level as he spoke to the uncomfortable group at the bar. "Either time has finally driven them crazy enough to open their arms to yet another puppet in their hive, or this genuinely is the moron himself, finally back." He smirked and spread his hands, as though torn between amusement and anger. "I'm not sure which sounds like the better option."

"I don't know. I trust what they're saying," Whitesides murmured, sleepily, from the end of the long table. "They have good evidence this time. And they know him pretty well. We were there the last time they worked it out, I know they wouldn't let themselves be tricked again."

"And precisely what makes this different to last time? When they, ah, 'had evidence' that supposedly proved the identity of that puppet?" Waveguide even drew the little air-quotes. "How many days did it take before they worked it out? Longer than, ah, 'Skywarp' has been back so far this time, that's for sure."

"I'm sure if you asked, Thundercracker would let you read Starscream's autopsy report. They were thorough, they've analysed everything and-… we all think he's _him_."

"Because he's sitting behind you, and you're putting on a good show of unthinking trust and dedication to your masters? How touchingly noble."

Skywarp wasn't sure if _he_ was meant to have overheard, but Waveguide's stage whisper was clearly intended to shame the constable into silence. The former surveyor lowered his voice to a scornful murmur, and spoke very close to the smaller mech's ear; "I hardly think you'll charm your way into his berth _that_ way."

Whitesides pursed his lips, embarrassed, and found something interesting to study in his flask.

Skywarp elbowed Pulsar gently in the side. "Aren't you gonna say anything?" he asked, quietly. "That's your bro he's talking to."

Pulsar watched her former roomie's back for a few moments, sombrely. "It's all right. We're used to it. He's a mouthy glitch, we just had to get used to letting it roll off us. It's not worth unbalancing things in favour of an argument."

"Surely you're not _afraid_ of that half-clocked old barge?"

"Not precisely afraid of _him_, but what he can do," Pulsar agreed. "Afraid that if we upset him, he'll cut our budget again. We're stripped back to the minimum we can operate on, at the moment; if he agrees to lower our funding again at senate, we'll have to start cutting services."

Skywarp straightened, slightly, and elevated his voice just enough to be heard. "So what precisely is his malfunction? Running an underground crime syndicate or something?"

"I wish it was that simple, because we could justify arresting him. No, TC still hasn't quite persuaded him that he and Starscream aren't secretly trying to turn the constabulary into a replacement Decepticon army to overthrow him."

Skywarp couldn't help the little snerk. "He has _seen_ you guys in action, right? Less effective army would be hard to find."

Frustrated, she punched his arm. "I thought you were being serious?"

"That _was_ serious."

Pulsar lowered her voice to a whisper, almost inaudible even to Skywarp – he had to retune his audios to pick it up. "It probably didn't help that for a while, there was a… well, it was meant to be secret, but everyone knew about it." She winced into her cube. "Whisper had a betting pool going about whether Blink's sire was Boxer, or Starscream."

Skywarp's brows shot up and he promptly sucked energon into the wrong intake. "Uh-… And who was it?" he wheezed, once he'd got his fans back under control.

"Whites still hasn't told anyone, not even his doctor. He's sticking with his story that he got careless with a prostitute, even though he knows no-one believes him. A very rich prostitute that bought him an apartment in exchange for him keeping quiet about the affair."

"Huh. If Screamer can't _recruit_ new allies, he'll just… breed them, is that it? Ew." Skywarp curled his lip. After a thoughtful sip of energon, he added, with an artful innocence; "Anyone checked the wee bit ain't Waveguide's?"

Now was Pulsar's turn to splutter into her energon. "That's not funny."

"Not laughing. It'd explain why he's got himself in such a snit about you guys though. Bad enough getting a cop sparked – but a cop who works for your worst enemy, too? Pit. Ouch. I'd wanna sweep that under the carpet pretty quick if I was in his place, too."

Pulsar gave him another punch in the arm.

"It figures that violence works best at getting a point across to him," he heard Waveguide comment, somewhere in the distance, and sat on the urge to throw something at him. "Maybe without it, you can't smack a point into that thick helm."

The two glared at each other across the room, for a while, until Waveguide lost interest and went back to his politics. (Trapped in the small serving area and pressed into service as an unwilling sounding board, the bartender couldn't help looking awkwardly discomfited, trying not to cringe too obviously.)

Lips pursed and brows knitted into a scowl, Skywarp slowly turned his empty flask between thumb and fingers. The councillor had clearly grown comfortable with the idea of depressed, defeated, mourning Seekers, too distracted to put him in his place. Well, _this_ Seeker wasn't depressed, defeated, or mourning, and perfectly happy to remind him exactly who he was dealing with.

"I'm not gonna sit here and listen to this old slag for one astro-second longer," he growled, quietly. The stool scooted away behind him, squealing against the floor and attracting the attention of at least half the café. "If no-one else is gonna shut him up? I'm happy to offer."

"What?!" Pulsar waved her hands frantically, mouthing _no, no no!_ at him.

Skywarp gave her his most glowingly mischievous grin, balled a fist and pressed it to his opposing palm.

Then stepped around his table, and tapped the boat on the shoulder. "Ex-_cuuse_ me…"


End file.
